It’s true, other things are very important as well. For one thing, how do you sound when you talk? Are you loud and brash? That is a major turn-off. Do you whine and simper? That gets old pretty quick. How about your laugh? Is it offensively loud? Please, spare us…
And there is so much more. Women think of men as very simple creatures, and therein lies a big part of the problem between genders. We have a sensual attraction to women, and that includes far more than a push-up bra and tight pants. As humans, it is the visual cues that first draw our attention, but that is only the template. When speaking with a woman close and personal, her scent inevitably pervades the air. Not only her breath, which can be sweet and alluring or stink of liquor, but her very essence as well. Feminine hygiene is very important. A man may have a subconscious reaction to a smell that doesn’t sit quite right. He may find his eyes willing, yet still a feeling of repulsion wells up in him if she is sour or fetid.
It is a combination of many features that lends allure to the female. This is why some rather ordinary looking women can be very attractive to men. If she has a relaxed stride, there is something about the swing of her hips that defies explanation. If she has a pleasant voice, there is honey in her smile and teasing. If her scent is clean yet feminine, the man is intoxicated without even knowing why.
Finally, if she feels right in his hands, she is what he wants next to him every night. American women take their cues from all the wrong places. They wonder what it is about European ladies that is attractive, and it is only that they know how to be a woman in full.
The biggest problem with American women is that they think the look is enough. It isn’t. The bleached hair and the fake tan are signs of mediocrity. They are good enough for the frat boy, but not for the man. The brash attitude and strut are repulsive to the man who has an appreciation for a real woman. Just as American women are unsatisfied by the juvenile antics of many American men, we men who know the score are far from impressed by the clumsy, awkward slut that characterizes too many of the wannabe seductresses out on the town.
There really is something called femininity, and American women are generally very deficient in that realm. Perhaps it is the constant pressure on them to be like men, or maybe it is something in the water. I really don’t know, but they are consigning themselves to be the female equivalent of eunuchs when they abandon their God-given gifts in favor of mannish posturing.
Men would break rocks all day to spend a night with a woman who has the entire package, yet American women seem to think that the exterior is all that counts. They are so wrong. It has to come from the inside out, and it has to be an offering of their very essence. A woman who embraces her femininity and rejects the androgynistic culture she is being force-fed by American culture like so much corn at the slaughterhouse feed lot will be an irresistable object of desire.
We men want a woman we can drink in with every sense, and who will provide us with a suitable complement to our own masculinity. We don’t want a figurine to place on the counter, but a refreshing pool we can slide into when hot and bothered that will envelop us with pleasure and relief. We want it all, and that’s what you should offer.
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welmer,
this is a good post. it’s something that has needed to be said, and men can take just as much from it as women.
what you speak to is “sexiness” rather than “hotness”. to look at and for arm candy, i’ll accept hotness; for sex and the long term, i prefer sexiness.
Indee. The arrogant, borderline anorexic slut is a major turn off, at least for me.
*Indeed. My kingdom for an edit button. And a quote button would be nice.
and…
Enough with the warpaint, ladies. If I wanted a foul concoction of noxious chemicals in my mouth, I’d kiss a dirty paintbrush soaking in paint thinner. God gave you a unique face, why in the world do you cover it in roadkill (read the ingredients!) so you can make it look just like the face of every other woman in the world?
Welmer wrote:
“Real woman.” Now that’s a phrase I’ve not heard for a long time… a long time.
Men are confronted with the “real man” expectation because manhood requires rites of passage. There’s something special about males that earn the right to be called men — real men. Such rites of passage vary from man to man, and culture to culture, but in my view they’re often legitimate expectations that separate men from boys.
So when you use the phrase “real woman,” I am intrigued. What rite of passage is there for a girl to transition to a woman, beyond the biological changes? Is it a rite of passage for a woman to see beyond the exterior and be beautiful on the inside? I recognize that not all readers who enjoy this blog embrace the Christian faith, but I think that the following scripture gives a hint about the rite of passage for women:
I’d actually disagree there. The rites of passage, I think, are only symbolic recognitions of the boy’s and others’ awareness, which is really what marks his entry to manhood. For example, when a boy is circumcised in Islam, around puberty, it isn’t the circumcision that kicks off puberty, but rather he is put through that at that time because he is becoming a man, and it is time.
To set bars as to what constitutes real men and what doesn’t is toxic, in my POV. There will always be bigoted men who will say “you haven’t done this or that, and you don’t have a steed, or a decent pair of shoes, so you aren’t really a man.” No, that isn’t how it works. Boys become men — we humans do not make it so through our judgment. If you are a Christian, then you know that.
The same goes for women. All we have to do is let them be so, and they will. Today, we strive and strive to set limits and constraints on what is natural, and then promote all that is not. This is why women cannot let their own nature flow out from its source. It is as though we bind their souls tighter than the old Chinese society bound women’s feet.
“Feminine hygiene is very important. “
I extend that to psycho-social hygiene as well. Cleanliness on the outside is just a start; a gal needs to be clean on the inside too.
@ John Dias: Realfrauspracht was briefly discussed here on The Spearhead not long ago.
Re: rites of passage for women.
We have these rites for both sexes these days, because we have forgotten what a fully developed masculinity and feminity look like.
For boys, a rite of passage to “manhood” (danger quotes on purpose) usually involves violence. Contact sports on the mild end, savagery and murder on the extreme end.
For girls, the rite of passage to “womanhood” usually involves squeezing out a baby, inducting girls into the sorority of mommies.
Both are terribly stunted, stone-age visons of “real” manhood and “real” womanhood.
What really turns me on to a woman would be a peaceful nature, quiet composure, and willing, cheerful obedience. She can be a 3 or 4 in the looks department, but when it comes to those who are hot: and worse yet know it, they would drive me insane in no time at all.
and worse yet know it, they would drive me insane in no time at all.
Hence the importance of a) negs, and b) qualifying.
For girls, the rite of passage to “womanhood” usually involves squeezing out a baby, inducting girls into the sorority of mommies.
Except now they don’t do this until age 35 or so.
Excellent post and I love your writing style. I think I need to save this article.
I have thought of these things on my own but I can’t express them as nicely. I am European and I have two American friends who have both married with non American girls. Their concern was the same plus disgust at the american woman’s gold digging mentality.
Interesting thread on marriage/divorce stats on the New York Times (published Friday afternoon):
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/i-do-i-do-i-do-mapping-serial-marriage/?hp
Very good writeup. Truly feminine, attractive women not trying to upstage men aren’t very common in this culture. But when they’re encountered they’re quite appealing if not intoxicating because of the rarity element. I’ve met one this year and only the age difference (chemistry was present in spades) kept me from asking her out. She was a breath of fresh air. Unsurprisingly, she was from a good home where both parents remain together and she has a good father.
r.
-Well, there seems to be a big fat line drawn in the sand here, that should be quite easy to follow…
What comes around, goes around, right ??
Unfortunately, they´re a dying breed…:(
Kim,
True, your point. I guess the ‘glass half full’ reality is that true men will attract a true lady. I treat my women friends well but have almost no interest in dating one, though I have many opportunities to date. But this one was very pretty, well spoken, down to earth and just a pleasure to talk to. And even though she’s going through a hard time in her life, the graceful, ladylike manner in which she talked about her disappointment with her life challenges was more impressive to me than her external looks, which are very attractive. That kind of woman will be faithful to a man because she has something the majority of women do not. Character. And she got her character from her parents.
Rare and to be appreciated when met. I can’t believe she wasn’t taken because of her unique external and even more so, internal beauty.
So they are out there. I may never marry but if I do, I won’t marry anyone unless she has these kinds of qualities. I just wish I weren’t so much older than that girl because I’d have asked her to spend time with me, and she would have, major chemistry between us like it was. I don’t meet a girl like this very often, none of us do. Whoever wins that girl’s heart wins the lottery.
r
-And will probably consider himself the luckiest guy in the world, for the rest of his life..
I know exactly what you´re talking about, -have had the great fortune of coming across them once or twice in my life. They are indeed unique, and I greatly pity the women of modern day society, for not realizing that character will get you far…
And they will stick with you through thick and thin…
Not a bad article, but as I said on the Misogyny thread, so what? I mean, none of us are in a position to change the culture, or make Women do something different, at least not outright. While I agree with the spirit of this article, it comes off as whiny loserdom. Again.
Here’s a more proactive take on the matter:
Don’t like the way American gals treat you? Real simple answer: DON’T DATE THEM. Save your pennies, get a passport, and travel the world a bit. If gals in the Eastern bloc is your shot, GO THERE. No need to blather on about what American Women do or don’t do-your actions will say it all.
And if you’re like me who has no intention of going abroad for ladies, simply turn the equation around-take all those qualities listed above, and apply them to yourself-then, simply refuse to get with any gal who doesn’t meet the standard you set. You see, the dirty little secret a lot of us guys aren’t willing to admit, is that we want and expect the ladies to do one thing, while we do something else. Got a problem with a Woman’s skin-ok-how’s yours looking? You say too many chicks have an obnoxious voice/laugh?-ok-have you field tested your own on the ladies? Here’s my personal fave-you think too many American Women are fat-no problemo-whats your waist size in relation to your height?
See, the way I see it, the solution here is in a way, become that which you claim to want. I like looking nice, so I don’t even entertain the thought of being with a Woman who doesn’t jibe with that.
While its true that Women have tremendous power in the sexual marketplace, it is not absolute. We guys have power too-the power of the veto. We can vote with our feet, anytime we get ready. And if enough guys actually started DOING instead of talking in this regard, sooner or later American gals will start to take notice.
Like the Gipper always said-they may not be any easy answers; but there are simple answers.
Holla back
The Obsidian
I think the rites of passage that are ubiquitously understood to be the transition from boyhood to manhood are reflected in popular heroic epics: The Odyssey, Gilgamesh, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings (lol, sorry). Within the archetypal heroic epic, these are the common motifs that mark a boy’s ascent into manhood.
Wimpy/Reckless youth is compelled to go on a journey (you must destroy the ring Frodo!)
Youth encounters a wiser, more masculine mentor (Gandalf)
Youth makes love to a woman – or maybe resists a seductive force (I’m fine with Frodo not making love to a female, I did not want to see any hobit luvin. Seductive force = ring)
Youth destroys evil, saves the world, and is now a man – poof!
I know there is more to it than that, but I just wanted to state the basics.
Therefore; the passage into manhood usually necessitates a journey away from the familiar, a mentor, a woman who is loving and supports the hero, and the courage to face one’s demons.
The journey into womanhood is more simple: getting a period, getting married, and having a baby. Although sometimes, in the popular archetype, a woman is called to aid the hero, make some type of significant sacrifice, impart some wisdom, or seduce a villain.
Obsidian.
First of all-I´m not American, thank God, You guys REALLY have problems, the judicial system being what it is,- I´m from Denmark,Europe !!
Second; -I thank you for all your good advice-but I am not, and have no intentions, whatsoever,-of ever getting married. I mean why buy the cow, when the milk is up for grabs, nowadays ???
Third;-as to the whining, -I promise you that it was totally unintended, since I am having WAAYY to much fun to sit around and whine…
I was merely stating a fact…
I tend to agree with the general theme of your post Deborah, but this bit got my attention:
The journey into womanhood is more simple: getting a period, getting married, and having a baby.
To the degree that this is true, it might well be at or near the root of the problem. The path from boy to man is predicated on character developed and tested ‘by fire’ whereas the path from girl to woman is [usually] entirely devoid of any such character building trials.
Despite the fact that all women get their periods, the vast majority have babies and many get married, quality women have not always been as rare as they are today. Something else is going on…
Obsidian.
Misunderstanding.
My bad.
I am not out dating American women so I am left with pause when I read over and over the complaints of them. Why bother with a lesser caliber? There are so many details in which would give these women away before you invest precious time into them. Does she carry her purse to the rest room or does she leave it at the table, does she apply make-up in public (yuck), does she complain about her feet hurting from her heels (sign that she will quit dressing up for you a couple of months in), does she fuss with her hair a lot, does she talk in a way that gives her lies away (listen carefully), does she wear floral perfume or fruity perfume, does she tell you of her many illnesses and claim her conditions to be rare (drama queen, attention starved), is she down to earth and funny, does she mention her mother or group of best friends incessantly (not independent in her own spirit, may result in needy), does she have many, many products in her shower or bathroom counter (she won’t look the same when you wake in the morning), does she look just like all of the other girls in the bar (same hair, same tiny purse with tiny strap), does she have style, does she dress well ( a sign of deeper things believe it or not), does she talk with her mouth full,….and on and on. The special girls are rare, I know, but stop SLUMMING and it may prevent burn out on the lesser quality American women and an over-all shredding of them constantly. You have to also keep in mind that most of the lovely ones are not single so you are meeting the wayside ones and they are not a good representation. I think I’ll write a post about how to develop a good editing system for the younger guys mostly, but those same younger guys are probably equivalent to the same girls I write about here. I know women because I am one and have spent oodles of time with them. I listen and see every detail because I am an artist. It is my job to read between the lines.
Just trying to help…
“The journey into womanhood is more simple: getting a period, getting married, and having a baby.
To the degree that this is true, it might well be at or near the root of the problem.”
Hmm, good point Wombatty. Throughout history there have always been more “trial by fire”, character developing tests for males than females, but there were still more character developing expectations for women back in the day, than now.
While not expected to “vanquish evil”, women were still endowed with an important role in our heroic epic. In the first part of the cycle, they take the form of the selfless mother who raises the youth well, so that he is ready to take up his journey.
Most women today are unfit to be mothers.
In the second cycle of our epic, they are the virtuous maiden who gives the hero a REASON to save the world.
Women today are less loyal than in the past, and therefore, our potential “male heroes” lack the motivation to become something bigger than themselves.
In the third cycle of our epic is the “return.” The hero returns home from his journey, into the arms of the maiden, who has matured into the loyal and obedient wife, who will eventually take care of her husband when he gets old. Then, when she is too old to take care of him, their children will take care of the both of them.
With marriage being the ephemeral, joke of a commitment that it is today, men have better prospects of “return” at the retirement home.
Obsidia,
Great post. We attract what we are and even women without character will notice the differences between men with character and men who do not value character. (Not that I want one of those but the rarity element is always appreciated)
Kim,
So do you see the traits in Europen ladies that we find in so many undesirable women here? How big of a problem is it in Europe? I don’t blame you on not wanting to marry. Our legal system here is so hostile that marriage here is akin to a man living with a knife blade at his throat, legally speaking. I’ve seen it happen to friends of mine. Not something I want to have happen to me and putting myself at the mercy of the whims of a woman’s emotions? That prospect is about as appealing to me s going unarmed into lion country in Africa. No thanks.
r
It´s not that bad, yet, but as you are probably well aware, the american culture has a big impact on Europe, so watching these pages and hearing you guys talk, is somewhat equivalent with watching the sci-fi horror flick “The Shape of Things to Come”, if you catch my drift…And movie´s like Sex and the City does´n´t help either, to say the least!! Our judicial system, however, differs on quite a bit of important levels. For example joint custody over the children, the wife does´n`t necessarily get the kids, our the house and the money. In some cases none of the above, actually…The courts tend to look at it from the kids point of view, rather than the two crazy people screaming at eachother. So the kids may live with dad for 14 days, and then move over and repeat this at the mothers place, so…
Somewhat different from yours…Not a perfect solution, by any means, but the kids still gets to see both parents, on a regular basis.
-But most of the women are just as crazy as yours, -that´s a global thing, I think…
Good article drilling in on the lost art of being feminine.
I think the problem is really more driven by the fact that, for every man that won’t tolerate a good looking woman with a bad attitude, there are 10 men that will tolerate it. This is a lot like jobs that have terrible pay raises and no hint of meritocracy, as long as the aggregate demand is high, the company has no incentive to change because there will always be someone else who is willing to underbid you and take your place. So if you peel the onion back one more layer, it is really our fault. No value judgement on that though, that is just the reality of the landscape. It is however good to understand the landscape so that you can just drive ‘around’ the mountain, it’s a bit of a waste to try to move it.
Don’t like the way American gals treat you? Real simple answer: DON’T DATE THEM.
I agree.
Or date outside of your usual social circles. There are quality women out there but they’re probably not hanging out at the local pub.
Most women today are unfit to be mothers.
Yes!! Somebody has finally said it.
So do you see the traits in European ladies that we find in so many undesirable women here?
There are women like that in Germany but they tend not to marry and have kids. The men don’t want to reproduce with them. And I have to say that most German men I know wouldn’t put up with the crap you all do. The sloppy appearance, laziness, fickleness, materialism, and nagging would drive them to extremes.
But many American men don’t seem to be much better mates, for that matter.
The courts tend to look at it from the kids point of view, rather than the two crazy people screaming at each other.
Same in Germany. The divorce and child support laws are different there. You can still get screwed over by the courts but the damage is much less. This is why Boris Becker’s wife (who was right to leave his cheating behind) traveled to the States and filed for divorce in Florida; in Germany she would have done much worse.
Wombatty & Deborah- “The journey into womanhood is more simple: getting a period, getting married, and having a baby.
To the degree that this is true, it might well be at or near the root of the problem.”
Hmm, good point Wombatty. Throughout history there have always been more “trial by fire”, character developing tests for males than females, but there were still more character developing expectations for women back in the day, than now.
In the first part of the cycle, they take the form of the selfless mother who raises the youth well, so that he is ready to take up his journey.
Most women today are unfit to be mothers.
*nods* If a woman gives her all to being the best mother she can for her children, motherhood would indeed be a character building experience. Giving up the life you had before, when you could come & go as you pleased and do what you wanted and instead building your life around the needs of your child/ren. Getting up night after night with a teeny baby, a teething toddler, or a sick preschooler. Giving up a favorite food to continue breastfeeding for the proper length of time, rather than giving up out of selfish desires. Patiently sitting on the bathroom floor for hours upon hours while you potty train a small child and structuring your life around potty training for the first few years. Being sure to put in more work on your marriage than you ever did before, so you provide baby with a stable and loving family and also show them in their most impressionable years what love is supposed to look like.
The list goes on and on of course, but my point is, if somebody truly wants to become a mother, not just “have a baby”, and is ready to dedicate her life to the well-being of a helpless human being who depends on her for pretty much everything, she is embarking on a journey that requires much self-denial, cultivation of many virtues, and a point in her life that forces her to look in the mirror and be aghast at how impatient, self-centered, and lazy she was before this little person came and forced her to grow up.
Hestia, thank you. That was beautiful and that’s exactly what I’m talking about.
I would say the reason American women focus on the exterior is because they inside is awful and secretly they know it.
It is strangely easier to spend a couple hours getting made up and the nails done and whatever, than to actually change internally and become an interesting person.
It is the same problem many men have with game. If you say its luck or looks, there’s a little that can be done, but the heavy lifting of actually having a personality and gumption can be avoided.
Hestia
Thumbs up !!!
Well put, Hestia.
Not a bad article, but as I said on the Misogyny thread, so what? I mean, none of us are in a position to change the culture, or make Women do something different, at least not outright. While I agree with the spirit of this article, it comes off as whiny loserdom. Again.
Obsidian
I might be wrong about this, but I get the impression from reading this article that it wasn’t directed at men at all, but at the handfull of women posting here, and whatever female lurkers might be hanging about.
oops, got my tags reversed. sorry.
Black&German October 17, 2009 at 8:19 am
“Same in Germany. The divorce and child support laws are different there.”
Living in germany I can vouch for this. The ’statutes’ (they are no laws) are said to be the fairest in the western world. There are actually many cases where the women get poorly done by. (GOOD!) A part of how I know ‘feminism’ is so bad for women is I can see what is going on in Germany.
The german population is reducing rapidly. It has been since 1972. Birth rates are 50% what they were 40 years ago. Some cities have experienced birth rates down 80%. Men are getting vasectomies in droves. They tried to pass a statute requiring a man to get permission from ‘Planned Parenthood’ for a vasectomy. These are staffed almost entirely by women by the way. A woman has a right to an abortion but a man does not have a right to a vasectomy? LOL! So the doctors do vasectomies on a ‘no names cash only’ basis. These guys then go out ‘dating’ in the most predatory of fashion with the whole “I want a family” pitch. They get the women to put out for ages and ages. Often the women will be trying to get pregnant lying about being on the pill etc. It is not unusual for her to ‘get pregnant’ and name him at which point he breaks the bad news and kicks her out. A new phenomenon I am hearing about is women getting pregnant to ‘whoever’ and then refusing to name the father. It’s such a socialist state she knows she will get an apartment and be paid for for the next 18 years if she pops out a kid.
Those men who do have kids refuse to have them before the woman is about 35. The woman must work and build up money to contribute to the family just like a man. Women with no money are, just like men, finding it hard to find a man. The men also demand the women get back into the workforce quickly. So the woman is often 40, 2 small kids, at work. We have a few of those at my client in Germany. This is on the basis ‘who wants a woman who is 40 with 2 small kids’? The women know if they leave no man will take them on. They are as stuck as their grandmothers ever were.
Now the good men, the ones with money, have figured out how to play the game the wimmin are FURIOUS and DESPERATE. A man like me, 45, eating in a quality restaurant alone? Or with my mate Mr. Truth? We have to swat women away like flies. It is obvious I have money. I have no wedding ring on any more…not that that slows them down at all.
A female MP introduced a proposal for a 7 year marriage license which laid out the contract end grounds up front. My german mates rolled around laughing at that one. They compared it to a ‘dog license’. The german women also have the problem of the eastern chicks coming in. I read one report claiming 25% of all german women over 40 have never had a child. Even I find that one hard to swallow. The german women have resonded by marrying men from outside the EU with the offer of an EU work permit to even get them to marry!! LOL!! Many of the women I know married men from outside the EU. The german men simply will not marry them any more in huge numbers. How pathetic can a bunch of women be that their local men simply ignore them and marry someone ‘completely different’?
“They wonder what it is about European ladies that is attractive, and it is only that they know how to be a woman in full.”
Gents….this is truth. Not all, but certainly lots of the eastern european women know how to present the full package.
“Men would break rocks all day to spend a night with a woman who has the entire package”
Many would. But those of us who have done this? Breaking ‘rocks’? We are tired of it and we don’t want to do it for anyone any more. My testimony is “it is not worth it”. A man gets no credit from a woman for anything he does any more. Its a real shame. After 23 months I have still not seen one cent of the proceeds of my 27 years of labour. My ‘breaking rocks’ was not respected. Young men take note this may happen to you no matter you are the best husband around.
Welmer October 16, 2009 at 9:12 pm
On the ladies…..The older ladies used to very much mould the character of the younger women.
As I recall the older women used to use ‘A lady does/does not xyz’ a lot to the girls. ‘A lady never swears’. ‘A lady listens politely’, ‘A lady never interrupts a gentleman’, ‘A lady never leads’ (meaning life as well as dancing). ‘A lady waits for her man’, ‘A lady never corrects her man, especially when she knows he is wrong.’, ‘A lady is discrete’. There were a whole lot of these. They are all gone now in most western women. The older women used to put great emphasis on the difference between a ‘woman’ and ‘a lady’. ‘You are no lady’ was a cutting remark meant to humiliate a girl.
My experience may assist the younger guys a bit understand what is happening. I didn’t want a ’slut’ as my wife so as a youngster I played ‘high beta’ around the girls. I stayed well away from ‘alpha’ behaviour because my brother was high alpha and I could see the sluts he attracted. I would not touch any of them. Also, after 14, I did my best to never show any interest in a girl. I forced her to overcome her inhibitions and ‘break the rules’ to select me for ‘who I really was’ as I saw it at the time. That was my strategy to attract the ‘one’.
The woman I ended up marrying had ‘an accident’ and got pregnant young to her first ‘boyfriend’ who was much older than her. I stupidly bought the ‘pressured vitim’ story….sigh.. She was the sister of one of my best mates. What was attractive about her? Well, looks certainly, performance too. But also she wanted to be a ‘mother and housewife’. Her ‘big ambition’ was to ‘maybe work part time in a library one day’. Her focus was her family and her kids. She came from a very tight knit family, her parents were great people. Her dad a ’salt of the earth baker’. She was ‘devoutly christian’. We were members of the same church although when she married her husband would not let her attend church ‘her story’. We married in the church we both attended at bible study for years but at different times.
She was ‘perfect’ for ten years. She did ‘everything right’. I could not fault her on much until the time of our first baby which caused some strain but I was expecting it. The second baby arrived and she turned into a nazi and I was obviously the ‘jewish slave labor gang’. The lesson guys is that there is just no telling whether a woman will turn bad.
For me on part of the downhill slide was ‘I want a career’ and I helped her get one. Bad mistake. Then we got into the ‘trap’ of buying a house that we could afford only on our two incomes. Then she decided she wanted to be a housewife again. Work was a drag. No shit? But what about the mortgage? The bills? Feeding the kids? Not her problem.
One day, when we were having a real heart to heart the conversation went like this:
GM: “Why will you not help pay the bills by going to work? I need some help.”
EX: “I never really wanted to work.”
GM: “What? Why would you say you wanted a career if you didn’t really want one? We both worked so hard to get you what you said you wanted!”
EX: “I wanted to be more like you. I thought if I were more like you then you would love me more.”
GM: “What are you? Crazy? That is so sad you did that. The reason I love is you precisely because you are NOT like me. I don’t want a ‘partner’ or ’second GM’ in the house. I want a WIFE! And a wife is an entirely different thing.”
Somewhere along the line, according to her testimony, my ex picked up the idea that men like women who go out and act like they perceive men to act. This could not be further from the truth unless the man is gay.
If there is ONE message for the ladies to get, and I doubt they will listen to a ‘mere man’ it is that what men really want is WIVES. It is only as WIFE that you hold value for a man. And WIFE = PEMANENT. None of this ‘until I feel unhappy do we part’ crap. But women are ‘empowered’ and should not have to stay in an ‘unhappy’ marriage. Then don’t! Make yourself happy! My Dad didn’t ‘make my mum happy’. He certainly gave her all he could but it was HER job to make sure SHE had her own life with the other women and enough things that she enjoyed doing. She played womens tennis, golf and cards. And in our family there was ALWAYS some new baby around that the women could go and fuss over. I have 50+ cousins. There was MORE than enough for the women to do that would make anyone happy.
Hallo aus Amerika!
Yeah, gotta agree with you there, Globalman. German men just don’t put up with this crap. You should see how some of these Amis behave. It’s shameful.
There are women whose children attend my son’s preschool (middle-class area!) and some — not all, of course — of them are like this: they’re overweight, they don’t bathe regularly, have greasy/smelly hair, dress in jogging suits even though they don’t go jogging, don’t cook, don’t bake, don’t clean up (they have maids), put the kids in front of the TV all day, don’t have sex with their husbands (and brag about it!), etc. Yet they’re living well in nice houses, driving $40,000 SUV’s, etc. Where I’m from in Bavaria a woman who acted like that would be completely ostracized. Here, everyone thinks it’s okay. It is absolutely unbelievable. You have to see it to believe it.
The vasectomy thing is true, as well. My husband wanted to have one after our second child was born and they refused and then said that he could get it done for Euro700 cash. Black market vasectomies. Nice.
Those men who do have kids refuse to have them before the woman is about 35.
This is generally true but I know quite a few couples where the woman is relatively young (under 30). But in those cases the woman is usually very high-quality or a foreigner (like me). Or they live in the country, where the women are generally more “down to earth”.
When I was in Germany this summer they announced on the news that 1 out of every 4 children attending a German kindergarten had a Migrationshintergrund (one or both parents are foreign-citizens).
This is true?? What is the basis for deciding whether he is entitled to a vasectomy?
This is true?? What is the basis for deciding whether he is entitled to a vasectomy?
Sure, it’s true. At least it was true for us. I haven’t done any surveys, or anything.
Normally, how many children you have. You have to have 3 for sterilization and we only have 2. My gynecologist was willing to tie my tubes for cash, but only in the office. They had a small surgery for precisely that purpose.
They’ll also sometimes sterilize a woman if they judge further pregnancy to be hazardous to her health.
And birth control is expensive over there. They want babies badly. They used to frown over illegitimacy but they’re getting desperate now. Reproduction is a big topic over there and people are already starting to despair about the German race dying out.
In the village where my husband is from they break into a sweat every year about whether they will be able to get together enough children to keep the elementary school open. And this despite an ever-growing population. The population is increasing, but not the number of children. When my cousin (who also lives in that village — that’s how I met my husband) gave birth a few years ago the mayor actually came to her home with a monetary gift to THANK HER personally.
Oh, yeah. It’s that bad.
And my “ask a guy out” forwardness was something I developed in Germany. A woman could die celibate over there if she doesn’t make the first move. German men don’t pursue. They don’t ask unless they’re certain it’s a sure thing.
I don’t think the German way is great, either. But at least they aren’t treating their women like goddesses and then complaining when they act like one. And at least German women feel some sort of pressure to be decent mothers and wives. In America it seems like it’s an “anything goes” and “show me the money” culture. I just felt more comfortable there; the values were stronger. At least in southern Germany.
The vasectomy thing was funny because this summer we decided to go ahead and do it and were shocked at how simple it was. He got it done the next week and we didn’t pay a cent. No lecture, no guilt trip, and no questions asked.
The US has much less social cohesion than Germany does. Something I noticed the couple of times I have lived over there. Even Kreuzberg in the 1980s had more social cohesion, generally, than urban America did even at that time. When the US thrashed out traditional values, there wasn’t really anything to take its place — just different opinions. So yes it’s very much “anything goes” here, because once the traditional values were thrown out, we didn’t have the social cohesion to fall back on consensus values. Of course, in some parts of the US this is less the case (particularly smaller towns and rural areas). But in our urban centers, it’s very true.
I think I need to move to Germany where the risk isn’t bankruptcy if the woman decides it’s time to steal the man’s assets and go on to the next martial target of opportunity.
r
Personally, I would recommend you move to Denmark. Your money is worth more here and the population is smaller, and of course, the girls are the blonde, scandinavian type…;)
In Germany the monetary situation after divorce is regulated in the Dusseldorfer Tabelle (see it here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCsseldorfer_Tabelle).
Basically, it’s a table that lists the non-custodial (male or female, the table doesn’t discriminate) parents’ income and the associated child support payments by age of child. No one ever has to pay so much that he/she becomes destitute and the payments have a reasonable ceiling (the social state picks up the slack). If he/she has partial custody that is taken into account when calculating the payments.
Alimony is awarded in reasonable amounts (as the non-custodial parent can afford — the social state makes up the difference) until the children are school-age, after which the custodial parent is expected to seek full-time employment. Children from other relationships are also included in the calculation.
Nobody goes bankrupt, nobody goes hungry, and nobody has to pay out of their ass. But the system is also not so generous that a woman (or man, for that matter) would be tempted to leave for it. The goal is to ensure the welfare of the children while protecting them from becoming tools in a divorce. I know of a case where the parents started bickering over custody and the state threatened to removed the kids from BOTH of them and gave a grandmother temporary custody if they didn’t agree to a mediator. After they had cooled down and came to an agreement they shared custody.
Divorce is still nasty, though.
Germans are efficient, if nothing else.
I miss how things just seemed to run smoothly there. Everything just… worked. The engineer in me just loved that.
If I have made any errors, please correct me. I’m not an expert on the subject.
Sorry, here’s the link again:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCsseldorfer_Tabelle
My best friend got married in Denmark. It goes quicker there. Sort of like a European Vegas.
Black&German
No, youre right on the dot, B&G, -and that basically sums up the divorce situation in Denmark, too.
Nice post.
I definitely enjoy my women girly and feminine. And you are right about the importance of a woman having inner depth as well as looks. A cannot take a woman seriously who is nothing more than a vacuous, inane and superficial creature. She may be good for a quick night of pleasure or a purely sexual fling, but beyond that I am not interested in investing my time and resources in her. It is amazing how many times I have been turned off to a woman who looked good, only to start speaking and reveal a completely idiotic personality that I could not endure, even for the sake of her pussy.
There are plenty of good women out there, but, like most quality things, you have to know where to look for and be patient in finding them. Quality is only worth something because it is the exception and not the rule. Otherwise it would not really be quality now, would it?
Hmm… My husband wanted to know what we were discussing. So I told him about the divorce situation here in the States. His opinion: Sounds like lawyers are making an awful lot of money off of that. I hadn’t even thought of that.
B&G
Funny…I was thinking the exact same thing earlier today…
Looks like the lawyers are the only winners.
Sad, but true.
Feminists Hatch “Rape Crisis” On Campus
http://www.henrymakow.com/campus_rape_crisis_is_politica.html
Something Marc Rudov talks about often is the danger a young man is in with false rape allegations on campus….
Black&German October 17, 2009 at 12:57 pm
“Hallo aus Amerika!”
Wie geht es Ihnen meine schoenes Frau? Es geht mir ausgezheitnet….(I am on an english keyboard and my written german is very poor..I am Australian living in Germany)
“Here, everyone thinks it’s okay. It is absolutely unbelievable. You have to see it to believe it.”
Oh…I don’t..I was married to one who went that way…..
Novaseeker October 17, 2009 at 1:06 pm
“This is true?? What is the basis for deciding whether he is entitled to a vasectomy?”
I can vouch for this. I did the whole thing. As soon as my ex and I decided to part it was off the the clinic the next day for me. I don’t speak German well and the woman wanted to know all my family background details…..so I told her and she gave me ‘permission’ to get a vasectomy…LAUGH!! She wanted to know how many children I had raised (have you done your bit) and reasons for wanting it (because I had a bitch for a wife and was going to have to start again with nothing at 45…she didn’t seem to have a problem with a man being screwed over…LOL!!)
So I went and got the snip at a male doctor…no problem at all. EUR300 cash. I had some mates who wanted to know how this all went. They didn’t want to go to family planning for fear of being informed on or being recorded as having been. One is married so he has a real good reason not for anyone to find out. I asked the doc and he’s like “give them my name and number and tell them to call. I ask no questions.” He knew all the nonsense going on. So a whole bunch of guys from my office ran over and got ‘done’. I am sure they spread the word around. The doc was saying he’d been working nights and weekends as well between him and his partner. When I told him my story he just said “My friend, buy a ticket to brazil.” LOL!!
“German men don’t pursue. They don’t ask unless they’re certain it’s a sure thing.”
Yep…..this is how it goes….Now I will only approach a woman if she is unbelievably hot and I really want to have sex with her. When I saw my fav#1 the was just the most amazing vision I ever saw….so I just walked over to her and told her that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life….she just laughed and said that sounded like a good opening line. I met her two years ago and had not learned all this stuff then….
The women preen and pose at tables or standing in bars trying to attract a mans attention. (A HUGE proportion of the waitresses are foreign girls looking for husbands. You can be pretty sure you can get a waitress for the night if you are satisfied with that.) If they can’t get a man interested, I often openly laugh at them, they might come over and try more directly. Approaching a man means “I am prepared to have sex with you”. No question. I qualify them and if they meet my qualifications I might start talking to them. Apart from that I tell them to go away. Women you have never seen will give you their phone numbers on trams for heavens sake! One Australian woman who heard me talking at a tram stop and knew I was from Australia gave me her number, address, and days her husband was usually away inside a 10 minute tram trip!! Talk about desperate. The well off German men are taking no shit any more.
“The vasectomy thing was funny because this summer we decided to go ahead and do it and were shocked at how simple it was.”
Yes guys who are thinking about it…it’s a snap….feels like getting kicked in the balls for a few days but I only took 2 days off from a bit of swelling….no problem at all. I was back in ‘action’ in 2 weeks.
r October 17, 2009 at 2:08 pm
“I think I need to move to Germany”
I could live in any place in the world. I pick Germany. But I will never let a woman co-habit even there. And there is no need to. They are like ‘bugs on a bumper’. Don’t get me wrong…I would really like a really good woman but there aren’t any……and now I have tasted life having an number of women on the go I could never go back to just one. And they all get old anyway.
“Looks like the lawyers are the only winners.”
The lawyers are agents of the state. Given I have donated EUR75K directly to three different lawyers just to defend my position I think it’s a pretty fair statement to say they are making good money. My exes female lawyer dropped her because she could not pay her bills….ah, yes, the SISTAHOOD…LOL!!! I guess my ex has also paid at least EUR25K so we have spent at least EUR100K on lawyers…we lost EUR100K on the house and I lost at LEAST EUR100K in income because I was not well and didn’t feel like being a slave. Funny that.
So I call it my EUR300K divorce…which doesn’t bother me because I make more than EUR200K a year in a decent year. My wife wasted so much money the offer on the table was pretty much 50/50 plus maximum child support which left it at EUR100K for me and EUR220K for her. Not worth counting. One of the REALLY funny things was this..it was still ‘amicable’ and we were figuring out the money and I offered her EUR200K cash and all furniture just walk away. She was like “But that’s not enough, I need more money!” And I was like. “Sweetheat, I have been telling you for 14 years to please stop spending the money because we could not afford it. Who’s money did you think you were spending? It was 50% your money you were spending. We are not very well off because you would not live on a budget. That is what our divorce is all about. Your dishonesty.” Young men take note.
But she wanted me to get nothing as well as to be paying out EUR6,000 per month (after tax) until she remarried which would be never if it meant losing EUR6K/month after tax income. These were silly numbers and her father agreed. Hence my defense of myself in court. Her starting point was I should get nothing and start each year at -EUR120K (About -USD180K). Sigh. Women. The most amazing thing is that most women AGREE with this position. That is what the real problem is. It’s all so stupid as to be foolish. Young men take note..this is what you have to look forward to…these are real cases….I am not at all unusual as a successful man being attacked in family court.
Black&German October 17, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“I miss how things just seemed to run smoothly there. Everything just worked.”
LOL!! This is so true….when I was first in Germany about 4 years ago we had this really howling storm roll in when I needed to go to the airport from Cologne to Dusseldorf. There was so much wind and rain I could not understand the loadpeaker announcements….all the germans around me got quite animated over an announcement so I asked what it was all about…..the train was going to be 20 minutes late due to the storm….they were APOLOGISING to me and explaining this was most UNGERMAN like and wished that it would not leave a bad impression on me of their country. LOL!!
My ex happened to be there once when there was a one day strike and people from my client offered to take the day off work to drive her where ever she wanted to go because they were so ashamed that there was a rail strike and it might leave a bad image in her mind of their country. It’s really quite amazing when you come from a place like Australia where it is a surprise if anything runs on time. We joke that the reason you need a timetable is to see how late the train is! LOL!! Australia just sucks now. It really does.
Kimskinovgorod October 17, 2009 at 2:15 pm
“Personally, I would recommend you move to Denmark.”
The eastern chicks are everywhere…..
Sweden is the most feminised country in the world….how is Denmark?
The swedish women are some of the worst of the lot. They are good looking, no question, but they are femnazis in the extreme. They are now making men sit down to urinate…..swedish men are very pissed off about their women. The men in my age group are very dismissive of their women…I don’t know about Denmark as I have few Danish friends.
Globalman
NOT as bad as sweden and norway, but getting there fast..!!!:(
Mind you, I didnt mention anything about MARRYING them…LOL!!!
Globalman
Punctuality is a big thing in Denmark too !!
Sometimes I think that´s the only thing, that could start a revolution here !!
Mir geht es gut. Oder, auf gut Bayrisch gesagt, Passt scho. Aber jetzt kriege ich verdammt viel Heimweh. Puenktliche Zuege. Oje!
Now I’m getting homesick. And I’d kill for a good Brezel. Just one, I won’t be greedy.
Globalman, was your wife German, Australian, or American? Yeesh, she really raked you over the coals. What’s with all of the Australians in Germany? They’re everywhere.
We’re not all that bad. It’s just that the best ones tend to go early and stay married. On the other hand, more than half of German marriages end in divorce. That’s really sad. But it’s 25% for marriages with children, which is at least a less horrible statistic.
Sweden’s really terrible. My boss in Germany was from Sweden and he could tell the worst horror stories. Yeah, the standing to pee thing is for real.
Do you really think the women are better looking there than in Germany? Swedish women seem so bland in comparison. My husband says the best looking women are in Madrid. But he likes them dark (obviously).
American inefficiency is a shock to the senses after 10 years in Germany. But even France is painful. I was on a business trip in Toulouse and there was a public transportation strike. It was sheer chaos. That never happens in Germany.
The feminized dating culture in Germany has the huge benefit that when you do settle down you can walk the streets in peace. Here they catcall, harass, grope, and just act like general turds. Sometimes they get violent. Germany is much better that way. Women are much safer.
The only great thing about America is homeschooling. If they’d had that over there we would have never left. And I’d be sitting at home eating my Brezel. Our goal is: stay here until after the school selection year and then return. We’re basically educational refugees.
Black&German October 17, 2009 at 6:10 pm
B&G,
You germans have the best beer, best sausage and best bread. You will know the christmas markets and the gluwine and all the sausage stands….ooooo I LOVE german christmases but I eat and drink wwwaaaayyyyyyy too much. LOL!
Thanks for asking…briefly…my wife and I are both Australian. We grew up together in high school. My first gf was her best friend. They look like sisters. She is just under two years older then me. So clearly I was not ‘interesting’ at school. Here is a joke for you. When I went to high school, because I was a growing boy, my mum bought be clothes wwwaaaayyyyyy too big for me. So I went off on my first day to high school like a puppy with everything too big. My brother was one year ahead of me and a ‘football hero’. My ‘to be wife’ heard that the ‘younger brother’ was coming to the school. She didn’t like my brothers attitude to girls and was wondering what ‘little brother’ might be like. Whether I might be a little more interesting? She describes her first sight of me as ‘one of the greatest disappointments of her life’. She was hoping I would be another ‘football hero’. I plainly was not.
We ‘remet’ when I was 20 and she was 21. I was ‘all grown up and nicely so’ as she put it. I cut quite a dashing figure as a 20 year old.
I was also working in a ‘new’ area called ’software development’ that no-one knew anything about. So we knew each other very well. In 1986 I moved to IBM into international software development. Suddenly I was travelling the world in business class staying in 5-star hotels as a 23 year old. It must have seemed to her she ‘hit the jackpot’ from being a solo mum with two small kids to being the gf of someone working at IBM on a great career path. I was very successful at IBM. I won many awards. She was doing all she could to land me as a husband and get more babies. I truely believed she loved me, not just what I provided. I was wrong. For me she was my ‘dream woman’. I was naive.
She has not yet raked me over anything really. I have not paid any maintenance or child support. She has yet to get a cent out of me. LOL! All the money is going back to the guvment (lawyers) which is what they really want. I simply implemented a scorched earth policy. I propose to teach other men how to do this too. When it is clear to women that divorce is not a ‘bonanza’ they might stop doing it.
“Do you really think the women are better looking there than in Germany?”
I have not touched a woman born in Germany no matter what she looks like. I do not talk to any woman who did not grow up behind the iron curtain. If they don’t qualify I ask them to leave. I act like an alpha towards women. My fav#1 is the only one I am myself with. She helped save my life. I am very comfortable being a ‘beta’ around her. She does not understand all this. We will split one day anyway. Likely soon.
“But even France is painful.” Oh…don’t get me started about france…LOL!! My posts are long enough. I love the french and they are a lot of fun but they don’t want to work. Can’t blame them really.
“The only great thing about America is homeschooling.” Yes, the idea that the state will kidnap any children that are homeschooled surprised even me. There were a few cases recently in Germany about that and the govt insists that they will seize children being homeschooled. Its a bit of a give away about the NWO. What are they teaching in schools that they do not want parents to know?
Everyone is much safer in Germany, not just women. The US system produces a LOT of people who are desperately poor. There are plenty of places I will not go in the US. The US cities are dangerous places in areas. In Germany you can go anywhere and you are safe. The public transport is all clean 24×7. The only people who kill anyone inn Germany are the various crime syndicates. They are careful not to touch civilians. There was murder a few years back where I live. Two guys gunned a guy down at a restaurant in broad daylight. No-one saw anything….LOL!! Violent crime is almost unknown. Mind you, taxes are astronmical to pay for it all. It is the most communist country I have ever been in. No-one is interested in ‘climbing the ladder’ because the taxes are so high. There is little incentive to ‘try harder’. The fact a company can be fined if anyone works more than 44 hours even if they were not asked to has the bosses going around each night to make sure people leave and do not do too much work. This works how?
kim,
If I visit Denmark anytime soon I’ll look you up. I like being around ladies who don’t want to be a man. Perhaps you know of places in Denmark where the women are feminine, friendly and don’t need to shave facial hair. : )
But I must confess, kim, that a buddy raved about his time in Berlin and how friendly the ladies were, while he served there in the US military. He said he cried when had to fly home because his time serving in Germany ended.
Hmm….
r
Why not do both countries, -theyre fairly close…
Now thats a sound advice if I ever heard one….Lol !!!
You see, the dirty little secret a lot of us guys aren’t willing to admit, is that we want and expect the ladies to do one thing, while we do something else. Got a problem with a Woman’s skin-ok-how’s yours looking? You say too many chicks have an obnoxious voice/laugh?-ok-have you field tested your own on the ladies? Here’s my personal fave-you think too many American Women are fat-no problemo-whats your waist size in relation to your height?
Oh holy hell, yeah. I don’t want a man who wears expensive clothes–in fact, a man who would spend a hundred dollars on a pair of jeans is…not attractive at all to me. I live frugally, and I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than $100 on any garment–not even shoes. I don’t need him to spend an hour getting all metrosexual before he goes out. I’m most attracted to blue collar types–mechanics, pipefitters, machinists and the like.
But. The grease from hair that hasn’t been washed in a week is NOT a styling product. Food stains are NOT a fashion accessory. Bad teeth? *shudder* They don’t have to be straight–they don’t even necessarily have to be all there–but they do have to be clean and rooted in healthy gums. You don’t have to wear expensive cologne–in fact, I’d prefer it if you wouldn’t wear any. But anti-perspirant is nice. So is a shower once in a while. Only takes ten minutes out of your day, ffs.
The courts tend to look at it from the kids point of view, rather than the two crazy people screaming at eachother. So the kids may live with dad for 14 days, and then move over and repeat this at the mothers place, so…
Somewhat different from yours…Not a perfect solution, by any means, but the kids still gets to see both parents, on a regular basis.
Divorce laws in Canada are similar. Most divorces end in joint custody, even if it’s sole guardianship. Which means that even though one parent–not always the mother–has the child most of the time and makes all day to day decisions, the other parent has unlimited access and retains some decision-making rights in re to the child (medical, education, travel decisions). Access is seen to be the right of the child, not the right of the parent seeking access. Which is why I push my ex to see my kids–just sent them over today to stay overnight, but I had to call and suggest it. Time with their dad is my kids’ right, and it’s for my kids’ benefit. If I want to take my kids out of province or down to the States for a vacation, I need his consent. If I move out of province, I need his consent.
Child support payments are on a sliding scale like in Germany. They didn’t always used to be–when my ex’s ex was giving us trouble (she had remarried and was well-off, but wanted more money from him. As in, 2/3 of his income), the new guidelines had just been enacted. So when we went to court, not only did they deny her request for more, they lowered his payments to reflect his income, and wiped out 3/4 of his arrears because the amount he’d been forced to pay had been unrealistic for several years.
If I ask him for child support, which I’m not sure I will, I’ll likely only be entitled to $25-100 per kid per month. And he gets half the equity in the house (about $30k), unless I can convince him to sign it over in return for not paying any support at all. Since taking out a second, $30 000/month mortgage amounts to about $300/month, I’m hoping he’ll do it to keep a roof over the kids’ heads without any monthly money rancor getting in the way. If he doesn’t, and he loses his job or his income drops below a certain line, I’ll be $300/month worse off than I am now (and he’s not paying anything at all at the moment). And I will still believe I made the right decision in divorcing him…
When the ex’s ex decided she wanted to move to the States, she needed his permission. They negotiated between them that he would no longer pay any support, but would pay the full travel costs to bring them here twice a year. She wanted to go bad enough that she agreed. If I wanted to move out of province (which would mean the kids wouldn’t see him much at all), I think I’d absolve him of financial responsibility for them. He can pay travel costs to have them visit. I might even split them.
Sure, it’s true. At least it was true for us. I haven’t done any surveys, or anything.
Normally, how many children you have. You have to have 3 for sterilization and we only have 2. My gynecologist was willing to tie my tubes for cash, but only in the office. They had a small surgery for precisely that purpose.
The only reason I was allowed to get my tubes tied was because I’d had 3 kids, and even then they tried to talk me out of it. I told them that when your eggs are floosies like mine (the sperm doesn’t even have to buy her dinner), and your family history is of super-fecundity and late onset menopause (my grandmother still got her period in her early 60s), well, I wasn’t prepared to double up on BC for the next 25 or 30 years–especially since it worked so well with kid 3.
In places where health care is state funded (or state subsidized), doctors hate doing shit that in a few years they might have to reverse when the patient changes his/her mind.
Bernards doing a GREAT job…sadly the content is another false rape allegation.
Ladies? How about some ‘honesty’? Or is that too much to ask?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qInLPIXzLE
Bernards doing a GREAT job…sadly the content is another false rape allegation.
Ladies? How about some ‘honesty’? Or is that too much to ask?
See now that just pisses me off. No wonder when all I want is to get laid, men act as if I must have a bear trap in my vagina, poised to snare them into a commitment or snap their gonads right off…
What a fucking cow. And staying out all night when she’s got kids at home? WTF?
It must have seemed to her she ‘hit the jackpot’ from being a solo mum with two small kids to being the gf of someone working at IBM on a great career path.
See, that’s the opposite of us. My husband had a dead-end, low-paying job in a company that was going bankrupt but I saw major potential. He got laid off before we married and then again after I was pregnant (company went bankrupt both times). I was actually in the hospital, bedridden, the second time. But he had a new job before I gave birth, so it worked out okay.
I remember when he told me he was so ashamed and I think he thought I’d tell him off or something. I was REALLY UPSET (here I am pregnant, can’t even get up to use the toilet, throwing up my guts all day and he’s been fired AGAIN!) but I just stayed really calm and asked him where he’d thought about applying. I mentioned casually that I could always go back to my old job if he didn’t find something soon but that I figured he would and wasn’t worried about it. Then I asked him if he’d remembered to bring my yogurt because my heartburn was acting up again.
I think at that moment he began to worship me.
Not a bad article, but as I said on the Misogyny thread, so what? I mean, none of us are in a position to change the culture, or make Women do something different, at least not outright. While I agree with the spirit of this article, it comes off as whiny loserdom. Again.
Here’s a more proactive take on the matter:
Don’t like the way American gals treat you? Real simple answer: DON’T DATE THEM. Save your pennies, get a passport, and travel the world a bit. If gals in the Eastern bloc is your shot, GO THERE. No need to blather on about what American Women do or don’t do-your actions will say it all.
And if you’re like me who has no intention of going abroad for ladies, simply turn the equation around-take all those qualities listed above, and apply them to yourself-then, simply refuse to get with any gal who doesn’t meet the standard you set. You see, the dirty little secret a lot of us guys aren’t willing to admit, is that we want and expect the ladies to do one thing, while we do something else. Got a problem with a Woman’s skin-ok-how’s yours looking? You say too many chicks have an obnoxious voice/laugh?-ok-have you field tested your own on the ladies? Here’s my personal fave-you think too many American Women are fat-no problemo-whats your waist size in relation to your height?
See, the way I see it, the solution here is in a way, become that which you claim to want. I like looking nice, so I don’t even entertain the thought of being with a Woman who doesn’t jibe with that.
While its true that Women have tremendous power in the sexual marketplace, it is not absolute. We guys have power too-the power of the veto. We can vote with our feet, anytime we get ready. And if enough guys actually started DOING instead of talking in this regard, sooner or later American gals will start to take notice.
Like the Gipper always said-they may not be any easy answers; but there are simple answers.
Holla back
The Obsidian
I’ve been reading this site for a bit and I just had to respond to this comment.
This is probably the most useful advice given on the entire site.
A lot of the articles here do sound whiny.
As Marcus Aurelius once said:
“If the smoke makes me cough I can leave. Why think this any big matter?”
So all this whining about how American women are terrible is absolutely pointless. You don’t like them, go find someone else. What’s the big deal?
See, that’s the opposite of us. My husband had a dead-end, low-paying job in a company that was going bankrupt but I saw major potential. He got laid off before we married and then again after I was pregnant (company went bankrupt both times). I was actually in the hospital, bedridden, the second time. But he had a new job before I gave birth, so it worked out okay.
Me too. My ex had a mediocre, fairly low-paying job–but one he liked. He also had an ex who was hounding him for money–despite the fact that her new husband was earning probably twice what my ex and I earned together. He dealt with her with a lot of grace, saw his kids every weekend, worked hard and treated me well. When he was laid off, I didn’t even blink. He got another job, got laid off again, got another job, and the cycle continued like that right up until he suggested I go back to work.
I never nagged. I never guilted him. I hate doing those things so much, I don’t even do them to my kids when I probably should (which means their rooms are a hideous mess most of the time).
But then, I didn’t need him to live up to some hidden potential I saw in him. He was fine as he was. I wonder if my reluctance to push him to maintain a certain standard or improve upon it was my first mistake. My reaction, even after he started his serial job-quitting was always, “oh well, we’ll cope”, rather than “dude, you need to get your shit together a bit”…
Fair enough, but now that Obsidian’s been invited to contribute some articles, maybe I shouldn’t let him complain about the posts until he’s given me one of his own to throw up there.
But then, I didn’t need him to live up to some hidden potential I saw in him. He was fine as he was. I wonder if my reluctance to push him to maintain a certain standard or improve upon it was my first mistake. My reaction, even after he started his serial job-quitting was always, “oh well, we’ll cope”, rather than “dude, you need to get your shit together a bit”…
Hmm… That’s interesting. My husband wasn’t very ambitious but he is very talented and a complete genius. I guess I’ve sort of pushed him in his career. When he got laid off (both times) I didn’t make a big deal of it but I definitely put some pressure on concerning new employment. I’d ask him how the job search was going, hand him advertisements that fit his profile, proof-read his resumes, practice interviews with him, etc. I’m guess I’m ambitious enough for the both of us. But I must add that he’s moved up dramatically in the world since marrying me and his income has more than doubled. He would never have applied to the job he has now without my encouragement. Now that he is where he is he’s developed his own professional momentum. He’s very self-confident now. He actually had a slight stutter when I met him and that’s since disappeared completely (he says that I fucked it out of him, LOL).
Hmm… That’s interesting. My husband wasn’t very ambitious but he is very talented and a complete genius. I guess I’ve sort of pushed him in his career.
My ex showed some interest in a new career–spent $750 on courses and materials–and I was very excited. Got behind him, helped him out. Then he lost interest. Sigh.
I think part of the problem was how good at “making do” I was. I mean, even now, with three kids to support and no financial help from him (in fact, I’ve been paying one of his debts since February because both our names are on it), I can make do only working 15-20 hours a week–and I’m a waitress, not an accountant or anything.
I have a friend who had to go on assistance recently–she’s in a bad place health-wise–and she figured there was no way she could feed herself and her small son on what the governement gives her. I took her grocery shopping, showed her how it’s done. She has money left at the end of every month–and they eat a healthy, varied diet.
We couldn’t afford regular haircuts for the kids, so I learned how to cut hair. We couldn’t afford to pay a roofer, so I bought shingles and did it myself. We couldn’t afford new furniture, so I bought stuff at garage sales and reupholstered it with fabric I bought for 75% off.
And I wonder if my ability to cope and cope and cope, to take up slack and still keep the kids in clothes and school supplies and decent food, to take on any chore from heavy lifting to building a fence, made him feel less necessary. By the time I kicked him out, he was more like a teenager than a man, happy to leave the business of getting it all done to me.
So in that respect, I feel like maybe I enabled the whole thing. The uncomplaining coping just let him feel as if he wasn’t needed, until he got to a place where it was true. Sigh.
And I wonder if my ability to cope and cope and cope, to take up slack and still keep the kids in clothes and school supplies and decent food, to take on any chore from heavy lifting to building a fence, made him feel less necessary.
That could be. I’m pretty thrifty and I cook everything from scratch (which saves TONS of money) but I guess I’m too “girly” to do a lot of that other stuff. And I have to admit that I get off on watching him do “hard work”. It’s sexy when he comes in the house all covered in grime and sweaty. Sometimes in the morning I’ll just sit in the bay window and watch him shovel snow or dig in the garden. And he likes to watch me bake and cook. Oh, geez. We sound so “Leave it to Beaver” don’t we? I’d never noticed how cheesy we are. LOL.
Although my mom worked full-time all of my life my dad’s income was used to pay all of the bills and hers was invested or used for extras like vacation. I think even simple psychological things like that can have a big impact. It gave him the freedom to be able to say, when she complained about her job, “Then quit. It’s not like we need the money.”
Just wanted to say (before anyone jumps to conclusions) that I don’t thing being a stay-at-home mom is innately superior to a mother working outside of the home, especially not after the children are school-age. I’ve seen it work out well and badly both ways. After seeing my mother run herself ragged and live without sleep for 20 years, I wasn’t so crazy about the idea of full-time employment. But I have met some stay-at-home mothers that aren’t really contributing much to the success or well-being of their families and would be more use at work and putting their children in the hands of more capable care-givers (including their husbands). I think a wife’s goal should be to contribute to her family’s increase in whatever way she best can. I like the Bible’s version of the “ideal woman” and think this is a nice summary of it:
http://www.wcg.org/lit/bible/poet/prov31.htm
I’m confused. As a female, yes female’s read an anti-feminist blog, but what do you want from us?
You want us to be feminine? What is your definition of ‘feminine’?
Feminine is such a subjective concept. A woman’s concept of ‘feminine’ might be (and is quite likely) different than that of a male’s perception of ‘feminine’.
The want for a woman to be feminine is unfortunately a very limiting confine for us to work in, within this society. For us to gain jobs and respect in male-dominated professions, such as law offices, medical school, and engineering, we normally have to put on some male disguise of some sort. Yet, on the personal front, from men, we are wanted to be feminine.
It’s enough to trigger a melt-down. Let a women define her sense of ‘femininity’. If it is not in line with yours, thats fine. I’m sure you’ll find some other female who will suit your needs. Just understand that women are not a uniform gender, we are individuals, with unique personalities, different from one another. I know that men are also not a uniform gender, and that you are individuals, and it’s awesome because it keeps the world an interesting place.
Yes, this is a conundrum, isn’t it?
But perhaps you don’t realize that men, too, are expected to suppress their nature in many professional careers. Maybe this is a big part of what’s wrong: we have been androgynizing our society in every sphere of life, both public and private.
It’s sexy when he comes in the house all covered in grime and sweaty. Sometimes in the morning I’ll just sit in the bay window and watch him shovel snow or dig in the garden. And he likes to watch me bake and cook. Oh, geez. We sound so “Leave it to Beaver” don’t we? I’d never noticed how cheesy we are. LOL
That actually sounds pretty freaking hot. I have to admit, when he got that job at the sawmill and came home all dirty and sweaty, that was the sexiest he was to me in a long time. It was a combination of him doing “man things” and also him having an income that came close to making him vital to the household.
I’ve always enjoyed the sweaty labor stuff, though, and I wasn’t prepared to give up those satisfactions. I mean, 90% of women’s work is repetitive maintenance. You finish the dishes, turn around five minutes later and there’s more to do. You change the baby, and an hour later you’re doing it again. But you terrace your yard or build a fence or refinish a piece of furniture or install new flooring and you get this incredible sense of accomplishment and it STAYS. You do not have to do it again in an hour or a day or a week.
And he was never interested in doing those things. I tried to include him in them, but it was like pulling teeth to get him to contribute beyond, “Come get me if you need help pouring the concrete.” He was happy to let me do all that, because then he didn’t have to, but at the same time, I can see now how that would have undermined his masculinity without him even realizing it.
As long as he was the sole financial providor, I think it didn’t matter. But the moment we had to start using the money from my job for more than luxuries, well, that’s where things went south. From that point on, it was just a self-propelling thing, because the only thing that would have given him his manhood back would have been for me to quit and put the burden on him again–but if I’d done that, we’d have likely lost everything. And by that point, I think he might have resented me for depending on him to grow the eff up, when he’d been living as a teenager long enough to decide he liked it better than being an adult.
Sigh.
But perhaps you don’t realize that men, too, are expected to suppress their nature in many professional careers. Maybe this is a big part of what’s wrong: we have been androgynizing our society in every sphere of life, both public and private.
Thank you for highlighting my comment.
Of course I acknowledge men are expected to suppress their nature in professional careers. Which careers are these? In what ways do you feel suppressed in your occupations? What would you like, but can’t be because you feel suppressed in your male identity? I’m just curious.
As a teacher, and working with men in a school, interestingly, men often get the jobs as gym teachers, and higher grades, teaching math and science.
Additionally, not always, but in most cases, men do occupy the ‘higher administrative positions’ such as VP and principal.
Back to your initial argument about wanting a women to be feminine, then what do you want to be? Would you like us women to want you to be “masculine”? Or is that suppressing for you, as you have mentioned?
@Ally
I’ve felt suppressed in that I have to squelch my frank nature when working with women. I can’t simply tell them they’re wrong when they are, nor can I be honest about their capabilities. For example, I was removed from a project for telling a woman who was eight months pregnant that there was no way she could finish on the schedule our client had set (she couldn’t have done it even if she weren’t pregnant).
Unfortunately, her sister (who was on the client’s side) had brought her onto the project, and decided I wasn’t being “nice,” so I got the boot. Sure enough, the project is already two months (and counting) behind schedule. Fortunately, I had a contract, so I got paid anyway.
In general, I’d say men are better at “getting things done” in large part because we don’t care as much about protocol or niceties. We are “goal oriented” and women are “process oriented.”
As for being masculine, I think we men do a fine job of that without female guidance. It’s just what we are, and you’ll probably notice that for most men it takes a lot of work to force them to behave differently. Perhaps women like to put on “disguises” as you say, but I don’t think most men are very good at that — being frank and open are generally masculine traits.
If men are better at getting things done, how is it then, that women are able to actually perform and actually work alongside men in professions?
They clearly had to “get it done” to get there in the first place, did they not?
The pregnant woman you were working with had none of these ‘get it done’ qualities to be working on the job, yet she was hired and working with you. Makes sense much.
Thank you for polarizing and again, suggesting that the “frank” and “logical” way of getting things done is more effective than the “protocol” and “intense focus on the niceties” as all women I guess are capable of demonstrating. I wonder how I got my job as a graduate student, working alongside males, if I only focus on the niceties and protocol, and they don’t, yet we have the same quality of work at the end of the day?
Back to your initial argument about wanting a women to be feminine, then what do you want to be? Would you like us women to want you to be “masculine”? Or is that suppressing for you, as you have mentioned?
I think there’s something a little wonky (and I’m not saying this to provoke anything, just my opinion) about men protesting the idea of women telling them what they should be, when men are just as likely to tell women what they should be. I mean, if men want to define masculinity for themselves, that’s cool with me, because I think there are a lot of different facets to masculinity and most men embody at least some of them. But at the same time, telling women what they should be…
Although I suppose this post is more about “females attracting a mate” than about what women should be as human beings. Unless the only yardstick by which to measure a woman is by how she measures up (or doesn’t) to male expectations? I mean, in the past, a woman’s only options were to embrace the narrow definition of “woman” or just be a waste of skin. If men are to be allowed to “be men” without having to measure that against how they relate to the opposite sex–that is, even confirmed bachelors are valued if they contribute something to society–it’s only fair to allow women the same thing, no?
Ally –
What Welmer is saying is that men are hemmed in by protocol much more when dealing with women than when we deal with each other. With each other, we much more often cut to the chase and put aside the bullshit. With women, it is much more about environment, process, protocol and bullshit.
My ex-wife (a woman obviously) noted the same thing when we were in meetings with our son’s teachers. She works as a business executive and is more accustomed to a male environment and prefers it. When we were meeting with the almost entirely female teachers, she loathed it — so much focus on protocol, beating around the bush type speaking, sensitivity and bullshit like that — whereas she is more like a guy and wants to cut to the chase.
If men are better at getting things done, how is it then, that women are able to actually perform and actually work alongside men in professions?
They clearly had to “get it done” to get there in the first place, did they not?
The pregnant woman you were working with had none of these ‘get it done’ qualities to be working on the job, yet she was hired and working with you. Makes sense much.
I can see his point a bit, Ally. One reason I was so valued as a cook in a mostly male kitchen was because I’m about getting shit done. Labor costs on the shifts I supervised were consistently lower than other shifts, even with the salaries of the chef and sous chef who were absent factored in. Part of that was not having a problem with men acting like men–crude speech, frankness, and a general insensitivity to the feelings of others if they weren’t pulling their weight.
I mean, the fact that I quit that job over sexual harassment is an indication of how over the top it was–something that was expressed in the final decision on my unemployment insurance. Part of my problem with the man who was doing it was not that he was treating me the way he would other men–because I can hold my own IRT dirty jokes and curse-words, being told I’m not working hard enough, etc–but that he was treating me like a woman, and obviously had no respect for them at all. Still pisses me off.
I mean, sexual harassment is a touchy subject, because I do feel as if women just want men to suppress their maleness. That doesn’t mean women deserve to get their asses pinched on the job. But men need to be allowed to be who they are, as well. A lot of their behavior crosses the line, but a lot of women’s expectations of men cross the line as well.
I agree 100% with this. The trouble is that what is acceptable as “woman” is now much broader than what is acceptable as “man”. That’s one of the things we men need to change. Not by making men more like women, mind you, but by embracing different paths for men.
I’m a bit confused on your last question, but I think the fundamental thing I was getting at was how many times the word ‘feminine’ was used throughout the post, and how nice it is to have a woman to be ‘feminine’.
Maybe I am confused on the intentions of the post, but I interpreted in a way that was implying that woman are attractive if they are ‘feminine’. There is all this focus on her hair colour, the list goes on, and how it’s unattractive and feminine. Okay, that I get. But by imposing this ‘feminine’ expectation as a means of being attractive is just confusing. I also don’t think its fair to state these things when there are many men out there who do not necessarily find ‘feminine’ attractive or interesting. Then you are just speaking on behalf of all men. Yes, it be true, some men out there like the bleach blonde, fake tanned girls, and you can’t stop it.
There is much more to say, but I’m going to put my brakes on, and I just want to leave it at the idea that there are many forms of ‘masculinity’ and many forms of ‘femininity’ that are subject to individual interpretation. There is no one ‘femininity” that can be defined (e.g., nice smile, clean, swaying hips). I happen to find men who are moderately built, modest, sensitive, and somewhat “geeky” very masculine and attractive, but I know for a fact, that is not every girls idea of ‘masculinity. Therefore, I’m not going to stating it everywhere on my blog that ‘men need to be this and that, because that is what masculinity is’.
There is no one ‘masculinity’ that can be defined. Each is entitled to their own interpretation of each. This post might be one’s idea of an attractive woman, but let it stay at that.
Sometimes women do things better in certain settings. Being frank and open about things isn’t always helpful, I’ll admit, and especially not in our metrosexualized urban enclaves. I really suck at corporate asskissery, for example, and would probably compare very poorly to most women in that rather vital skill.
LOL. No. However, getting other people to do things for you could be considered a way of getting things done, I suppose.
Males in higher education usually got there due to high test scores. Females more often from good grades (although there are obviously plenty of high-scoring women, the results still favor men — especially those who go on to higher ed.).
I would point out that attending grad school is not technically a job, although it may feel like one. And as for the quality of work, that is pretty much subjective in most courses, and determined by an imperfect prof. with his/her own idiosyncracies. Quality of work counts a whole lot when you’re building a rocket engine, but not so much when you are writing a thesis on gender roles amongst the savages of Borneo. I mean, one can determine whether or not a multi-million dollar satellite is blown to bits at liftoff, and the other only affects the poor students who have to slog through the swamp of feminist theory on their way to graduation.
Your views are so entertaining.
Thank you for sharing with me. All the best.
You too, Ally!
That actually sounds pretty freaking hot. I have to admit, when he got that job at the sawmill and came home all dirty and sweaty, that was the sexiest he was to me in a long time.
Sizzle…
I’ve always enjoyed the sweaty labor stuff, though, and I wasn’t prepared to give up those satisfactions. I mean, 90% of women’s work is repetitive maintenance. You finish the dishes, turn around five minutes later and there’s more to do. You change the baby, and an hour later you’re doing it again. But you terrace your yard or build a fence or refinish a piece of furniture or install new flooring and you get this incredible sense of accomplishment and it STAYS. You do not have to do it again in an hour or a day or a week.
Ugh. I hear you on that one. I really hate laundry for that reason. While I’m sorting there’s more dirty laundry being made. Sometimes it seems so futile. And while I’m doing it there are these long pauses where nothing is going on but I can’t leave the house because the cycle will be done soon. So laundry day I work all day but have the feeling I haven’t accomplished anything.
There’s plenty of that project-type work to go around here, though. We bought an old-but-good house and are renovating it, bit by bit. I give him the “heavy work” stuff and stick to painting, prepping, decorating, dealing with contractors and laborers, etc. It’s very rewarding and closer to my personal inclination. I let him do most of the bigger yard work but I have a large organic vegetable and flower garden that I dig around in. Sometimes it’s fun to just get really dirty. LOL.
I think part of the reason why domestic drudgery so detested by so many who are doomed to do it, isn’t that it’s worthless, but that it’s largely thankless.
I mean, part of what makes me good at my job is that I’m good at assessing personalities quickly and tailoring my short term interactions with customers based on the kind of people they are. And I get a lot of appreciation for that–not just in the form of money, though that’s always nice, but in the form of “I just wanted to thank you for the excellent, entertaining service.”
Unless your spouse is one blammo guy, you don’t get that kind of thing on a regular basis just because you keep the house clean and the kids clothed and fed, and you don’t even get the concrete “thank you” of a paycheck every two weeks to tell you what you did was worth something for the people you did it for. I mean, yeah, if you’re a SAHM, you get your husband’s financial support, but in the short term, you’d get that whether you’re great at your duties or half-assed. A lot of women who love to cook get off on it in part because it’s “project oriented” and they get a “Thanks for the delicious dinner, honey,” at the end of it–something they don’t tend to get when the clothes are clean and put away, or when the kitchen or bathroom are spotless.
I mean, I might have been less inclined toward the blue jobs if I’d gotten the same appreciation for the drudge work as I did for them. If I’d gotten an “I really appreciate all you do around here” even half as often as I got a “Great job on that fence, honey”, it would have let me know that my drudgery had value to my ex. And the odd time when he pitched in in that way–tidying the living room or doing some dishes–he certainly expected me to show my appreciation for that.
I let him do most of the bigger yard work but I have a large organic vegetable and flower garden that I dig around in. Sometimes it’s fun to just get really dirty. LOL.
Haha, I’m one of those people who’s happiest doing the landscaping and planting the garden, and then leaving the weeding and watering to someone else. That’s why 99% of the plants I’ve chosen for my yard can survive without much help at all. And my houseplants? Well, they don’t ever say “Mommmmm, we’re thirsty! Give us some water now! MOMMMM!” so they’ve mostly died off. Every attempt at having a goldfish has ended in tragedy because of this…
I think part of the reason why domestic drudgery so detested by so many who are doomed to do it, isn’t that it’s worthless, but that it’s largely thankless.
And under appreciated and not valued one bit for the most part, largely by women themselves. I am what would be called “excessively domestic” since I enjoy doing all the boring mundane bits of homemaking as well as the extras and I am fortunate that my husband values my work and makes this fact known. The reaction I get from others is not nearly as nice however. People think I’m unintelligent, boring, or have some serious flaw because I enjoy what they find to be drudgery. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard comments from women that they would “die of boredom if they were me” or others have asked my husband how he can stand to be married to me as I’m clearly not as high & mighty as are they. Could you imagine if I retorted with, “yes, I’m sure pushing papers must be very exciting!”? That wouldn’t be acceptable as insulting me is.
A lot of women who love to cook get off on it in part because it’s “project oriented” and they get a “Thanks for the delicious dinner, honey,” at the end of it–something they don’t tend to get when the clothes are clean and put away, or when the kitchen or bathroom are spotless.
Being a good cook and baker can also open up a lot of doors, too. When people hear you have a pantry packed full of homemade jams, sauces, relishes, and pie fillings, it’s amazing how many people will volunteer to help you out with this or that for the cost of some of your canned goods or bread or homemade leg of lamb or whatever. friendships between the generations that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. Many friendships across the generation lines can also be forged thanks to interest in domestic skills. Many times older folks have invited me over to learn a new skill from them and then opened up the door to mentoring in life in general just because I expressed interest in a hobby they have or a skill they excel at.
These skills can also allow you to take care of others in a way you couldn’t otherwise, which is rewarding in its own way. Bringing homemade meals to those who are ill, just had a baby, or just need a pick-me-up for example, or inviting a bunch of single soldiers over for a big holiday meal when they would otherwise be stuck at barracks or eating in a restaurant is something that can be offered if one can cook and play hostess well.
I think part of the reason why domestic drudgery so detested by so many who are doomed to do it, isn’t that it’s worthless, but that it’s largely thankless.
I’m lucky that my husband is appreciative but I know plenty that aren’t. Sometimes I wonder about those housewives that “fall apart” in looks. What came first? The decline in appearance or the lack of appreciation?
And my houseplants? Well, they don’t ever say “Mommmmm, we’re thirsty! Give us some water now! MOMMMM!” so they’ve mostly died off. Every attempt at having a goldfish has ended in tragedy because of this…
ROFL! A kindred spirit. I actually have a Housework Plan that lists what I should do every day of the week (I cannot survive without my lists! Nothing would get done). For example, the Monday (today) list includes grocery shopping, baking bread, and vacuuming the floor, among other things. I actually list “water houseplants” on the list but it doesn’t help. They still die off. I don’t know why, but I think I have a secret sadistic pleasure in murdering houseplants. I’m so glad it rains outside or my veggies would be toast.
I killed 3 goldfish before I finally gave up. I’m like that little girl in the Nemo movie.
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard comments from women that they would “die of boredom if they were me” or others have asked my husband how he can stand to be married to me as I’m clearly not as high & mighty as are they. Could you imagine if I retorted with, “yes, I’m sure pushing papers must be very exciting!”? That wouldn’t be acceptable as insulting me is.
I feel you there! Some of them are just glorified secretaries but to hear them talk you’d think they were doing VERY IMPORTANT WORK. LOL. I’m like, “Wow! You spent all day answering the phone. Good for you! What did I do? Oh, nothing. Just taught my 4 year-old to read and learned how to make mousse au chocolat. All in a day’s work, you know.” But I’m too nice to actually say that.
Strangely, I enjoy cleaning the toilet. I don’t use any harsh chemicals and afterwards it just smells so clean. And it’s one of the few times when I’m completely alone. Even now my preschooler is playing with his LEGOs next to me and my toddler keeps pressing random keys on the keyboard (typing with small children…) and throwing bits of play dough on my lap.
Bringing homemade meals to those who are ill, just had a baby, or just need a pick-me-up for example, or inviting a bunch of single soldiers over for a big holiday meal when they would otherwise be stuck at barracks or eating in a restaurant is something that can be offered if one can cook and play hostess well.
Yes, yes, yes! When we lived in Germany my husband would invite all of the single guys that worked with him over for Thanksgiving dinner. They got a real kick out of that. And they loved his annual gigantic box of Christmas cookies. NOTHING beats German Christmas cookies!
The only problem with being a good baker or cook is that they get used to the quality of the food. Now if I order a pizza my husband complains that I didn’t make one. If I buy salad in a bag he just picks at it. And I’ve given up on store-bought bread. He just refuses to eat it and I eventually have to throw it away. He’s SO SPOILED. LOL.
Could you imagine if I retorted with, “yes, I’m sure pushing papers must be very exciting!”? That wouldn’t be acceptable as insulting me is.
Well, pushing papers garners more reward than simply the satisfaction of a job well done. If nothing else, you get a paycheck. It’s a rare person who can do the same, repetitive job, and keep doing it well and with enthusiasm, when their only reward is to do it all again tomorrow.
I do think husbands would be well-advised to let their wives know on a regular basis that all the shit they take for granted is NOT, in fact, taken for granted. I mean, the closest thing my ex came to that was when I was on mat leave with my third, and he made some comment about “unlike some people, I have to go out and WORK for a living”, at which point I decided it was time for me to start working Friday nights again. Just four hours, one night a week. Two weeks later, he told me “I’m starting to regret saying that to you. I’d forgotten how hard it is to be the one at home.” Still not a thank you, but I did feel gratified.
I don’t know about other husbands, but I think the only time my ex ever told me the house looked nice was when it had fallen into a disaster state when I had the flu, and I spent a whole day doing hard, heavy cleaning, and he came home to a spotless home instead of a pigsty. But maintaining it in that immaculate state earned no demonstrative appreciation at all. Maybe that might not have mattered as much if he’d been pulling his share of the weight in other areas, but it still would have motivated me to do a better job of it.
I feel you there! Some of them are just glorified secretaries but to hear them talk you’d think they were doing VERY IMPORTANT WORK. LOL. I’m like, “Wow! You spent all day answering the phone. Good for you! What did I do? Oh, nothing. Just taught my 4 year-old to read and learned how to make mousse au chocolat. All in a day’s work, you know.” But I’m too nice to actually say that.
Ah, yes the things you can think in my head but would never said out loud. The mommy wars stuff is really so silly. She works, I don’t, what is the big deal. Do different choices really need to turn women into two warring factions? Sometimes I just want to say, “you do realize if you ever needed emergency childcare, I could have been somebody you could have relied on if for just a moment you had treated me with some respect and kindness”
The only problem with being a good baker or cook is that they get used to the quality of the food.
LOL! My daughter recently had store bought bread for the first time at somebody’s house and I had to shush her up before she began to express her dismay in loud toddler-ese. “ewww difcusting! difcusting! Mommy it be wet! oh no!” *hangs head in shame* Now that she has been instilled with food snobbery, major work on manners is up next.
Maria Shriver, The Bride of The Governator, is doing a TV series called Woman Nation. The program celebrates women’s political and economic achievements to date. Marc Rudov wrote a rebuttal this weekend saying “Well fine, you ladies don’t need any alimony then”. It’s pretty funny:
http://thenononsenseman.mensnewsdaily.com/2009/10/17/maria-shriver-alimony-terminator-marc-h-rudov/
Well, pushing papers garners more reward than simply the satisfaction of a job well done. If nothing else, you get a paycheck. It’s a rare person who can do the same, repetitive job, and keep doing it well and with enthusiasm, when their only reward is to do it all again tomorrow.
As do many domestic activities, from washing cloth diapers & breastfeeding to growing a garden or thrifting for a family’s clothing. Earning a paycheck is not the only way to provide an economic benefit to a family, nor is it the only way to “earn” money. There is work that can be done to save a family significant amounts of money, leaving actual ‘income’ available to be invested and utilized for uses other than supporting the immediate and short term needs of the household.
In my case, I produce a significant portion of the food my family eats and will be producing much more in the years to come now that we have acreage of our own and will be staying put for awhile. This summer I grew, harvested, and preserved over 850 jars of food and dehydrated a bunch more. I also have a portion of food that will be sold at holiday fairs later on this year, along with pies, cakes, and other baked goods.
My daughter and I have laying hens that we both take care of and we wound up with not only enough eggs for our family but enough to sell for a nice profit at the farmers market as well, in addition to the baked goods, homemade soap, and other goodies we sold at my booth. We now have goats that will be provide milk and other things to our homestead output next year. In our freezer are several whole chickens and half of a cow that I “earned” by doing work for one of my new neighbors here, along with 100# of salmon that my husband was given, all we had to do was clean up the fish ourselves and process them for canning and freezing.
As I type, I have apple jelly processing in my waterbath canner, using the cores and peels from the apples I harvested off the tree on our property this weekend and turned into apple pie filling and apple butter this weekend. Beef bones are roasting for beef broth to be pressure canned this evening.
Obviously such a lifestyle is not ideal for every family, but I share it as one example of how a full-time homemaker can “earn her keep” and have something more than satisfaction with her labors, despite not bringing home a paycheck in the traditional sense of the word. Not that satisfaction is a bad thing to have at all, though!
But maintaining it in that immaculate state earned no demonstrative appreciation at all.
Well, I don’t usually get praise for specific things I’ve done but he’s just generally appreciative of me; he treats me with respect and politeness and is helpful. Please and thank you type stuff.
I don’t really expect thanks for normal everyday stuff. After all, I don’t thank him for going to work everyday. But it’s obvious that he appreciates me, even without talking about it, and he knows that I appreciate him.
He’s not big on the lovey-dovey talk but he doesn’t need to be. He loves me, it’s obvious, no comment necessary. Or, to put it the Bavarian way: “I told you I loved you once. If it changes, I’ll let you know.”
A friend of mine’s ex-husband was the exact opposite. He told her all the time that he loved her. Told all of his mistresses that too.
I rarely get flowers but he scrapes the ice off my car before he goes to work in the morning. If he comes into the bedroom and I’m folding laundry he’ll just grab a shirt and help out. If the kids are driving me crazy he’ll grab them and take them outside so I can have a break. That’s his version of romance. Works for me. The flowers just die anyway, and the chocolate makes me fat.
My daughter recently had store bought bread for the first time at somebody’s house and I had to shush her up before she began to express her dismay in loud toddler-ese.
LOL. My son calls it Gummibrot (rubber bread). My husband never really liked store-bought bread but the clincher was the day I accidentally put it on the bottom of the grocery bag under a bunch of cans (stupid, I know). When we got home it was smushed almost flat. I took it out and set it on the counter. When he came in at breakfast the next day, it was back to its original shape. He just looked at it for a minute, looked at me, looked at the bread and said, “There is no way in hell I’m eating bread that can bounce back.” Okay… Time to get out the baking stone. LOL. German bread snob.
Whoa, Hestia. You are my role model!
Apple and cherry trees are going to be planted next spring. But we had a bumper crop of mulberries this spring that was made into copious amounts of jelly. Also, blueberry-banana, strawberry, and peach. Only the mulberries were from our garden, though. But we got lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, chilis, lettuce, carrots, and herbs.
My biggest contribution is actually in the financial realm. I managed to double our money in 3 years so that we could afford this house and we manage to get along quite well considering we have one middle-class income.
They still die off. I don’t know why, but I think I have a secret sadistic pleasure in murdering houseplants. I’m so glad it rains outside or my veggies would be toast.
I don’t murder them. I keep them alive and in a state of perpetual suffering for a long time. LOL
She works, I don’t, what is the big deal. Do different choices really need to turn women into two warring factions?
See now that pisses me off. She works and you don’t? Nuh uh. She works outside the home, and you work at home–and it would still be work even if you didn’t bring in an extra dime. Honestly, if my ex had had to pay someone to do all the shit I did for free, he’d have been forking over about $40 000 a year. But if he pays a maid to come clean the bathroom, or a workman to build a fence, that’s “work” and productive and good and remunerated in some fashion. But if I clean the bathroom, or build a fence it’s just…what? Nothing, I guess.
SAHMs do more than sit on their asses all day watching soaps, letting the kids raise themselves other than keeping them from sticking the odd fork in an electric socket, and shoving a frozen pizza in the oven. If that’s all you do, you aren’t a SAHM, you’re a bum.
There is work that can be done to save a family significant amounts of money, leaving actual ‘income’ available to be invested and utilized for uses other than supporting the immediate and short term needs of the household.
That’s where your situation and mine differ. I did all that stuff–not earning money so much as saving a buttload of it. But instead of using the leftover money to do stuff we both wanted to do, he just figured, “cool, now I don’t have to work as much.” I mean, by the end of it, he was working 25 hours a week, maybe 30 weeks a year, and the rest just sitting around. And all the man-jobs I did, well, they earned me some appreciation at the start, but eventually he just started to take them for granted too. It went from “thanks for cutting the grass,” to “Grass needs cutting” to “are you gonna cut the grass, or what?” in the space of one summer.
That is, there has to be some reward somewhere, or all it is is drudgery. Whether that reward is some extra money, more time to do what you like, or just a freaking “I appreciate you” now and then.
I rarely get flowers but he scrapes the ice off my car before he goes to work in the morning. If he comes into the bedroom and I’m folding laundry he’ll just grab a shirt and help out. If the kids are driving me crazy he’ll grab them and take them outside so I can have a break. That’s his version of romance. Works for me. The flowers just die anyway, and the chocolate makes me fat.
If my ex had done that, I’d have kept him. I’d have gone out of my way to make him the happiest and most sexually satisfied guy on the planet.
I don’t murder them. I keep them alive and in a state of perpetual suffering for a long time.
Now that’s just cruel. LOL.
If my ex had done that, I’d have kept him. I’d have gone out of my way to make him the happiest and most sexually satisfied guy on the planet.
See, now you know why my husband is so happy and satisfied.
You’ve got to love on a guy who scrapes your windshield at 6am and takes out the trash without nagging.
He cracked up when I told him I was writing about the Gummibrot.
But if I clean the bathroom, or build a fence it’s just…what? Nothing, I guess.
This one always gets to me. I have a friend who watches someone else’s child during the day, along with her own 3. If you ask her what she does, she says she’s a “nanny”. So what, before she became a nanny she was just “nothing”? Watching 3 kids is not work but watching one stranger’s kid is?
But instead of using the leftover money to do stuff we both wanted to do, he just figured, “cool, now I don’t have to work as much.”
That’s pretty… um… broke. That would have made me really frustrated, too. Men should at least be making a earnest effort to provide for their families (I know it doesn’t always work out, especially in a job market like we have today) or they should pick up the slack at home. No laziness allowed.
Do you think he might have been depressed, or something?
Can I just say something? It really bothers me when in this comment thread there are repeated descriptions of domestic life as thankless and unpaid drudgery. Living that life is the essence of privilege. Do you get that?
Many husbands will offer their wives the option of working a paid job vs. staying at home. But I would surmise that nine out of ten wives that work in paid jobs will NOT offer the same option to their husbands. Options equal power, and husbands empower their wives with this choice. The reverse is seldom true. Those who are privileged (usually women) are given the choice, while those who are not privileged (usually men) are not.
Someone mentioned that housework is unpaid. But those who choose stay at home instead of working a paid job are, in fact, giving it a monetary value. If, for example, a particular stay-at-home mom could have been working a job with a salary of $60,000 per year — if she gave that up to stay at home — then it stands to reason that the stay-at-home role is worth at least as much as $60,000. In fact it’s probably worth more when you count the emotional benefits, which the working husband only experiences fleetingly by comparison.
Someone used the word “drudgery” and invoked endless repetition in referring to housework. It is true that it can get repetitive and it often lasts longer than a traditional 8-hour work shift, but there is a benefit which offsets that. Compared to many jobs in the paid workforce, the labor of one who stays at home is not as intense. Sure there is laundry and mopping, diapers to wipe and dispose of, vacuuming and the like. But there is also casual strolls through the aisles of a department store or shopping mall. There is the quiet getaway of the TV or book while a child is napping. And for those who cook, there is that labor of love. Don’t tell me that the home life is drudgery. Your shift may last from 6AM to 8PM, but the one in the paid job does not share in the benefits and luxuries that you fail to recognize or appreciate.
Someone said that the stay-at-home life is thankless. A comparison was made between the paid laborer being “thanked” monetarily with a paycheck, likening this to some sort of pat on the back every two weeks. But as I mentioned above, payment for labor is provided both to the salaried laborer as well as the unsalaried stay-at-home nurturer. There is a monetary value attached to each role. What you want is to receive the benefits of the role and sphere that you chose (like the paid laborer), PLUS you want to be “thanked” for your mundane work. Did you thank your spouse for writing that whiz-bang sales report, or doing that presentation in front of the committee? Did you thank your spouse for their enduring the daily commute to and from work? Wouldn’t it sound rather bizarre and a bit forced or contrived for you to cough up such a “thank you?” Thank you, honey, for getting those figures to the VP of Marketing by end-of-business last week. Thank you, honey, for enduring that traffic jam for the umpteenth time. If that sounds forced, imagine what it would sound like to you if your spouse thanked you for how shiny the floors are. Of course it would sound forced and manufactured. So you ask to be rewarded not just with the option to choose the home life, not just the less intense nature of it, not just the emotional intangibles of watching your kids grow up daily, but on top of all that, you demand active thanks. And if your spouse gives it with even the slightest tinge of insincerity, I imagine that you might complain that he should want to thank you for such mundane tasks. Narcissism on display right here!
Stop your moaning and count your blessings already. You were offered a choice, which is probably not something that you could say that you did in return. Moreover, you exercised the choice presented to you, whereas your spouse did not. You are privileged. Buck up, little camper.
That’s pretty… um… broke. That would have made me really frustrated, too. Men should at least be making a earnest effort to provide for their families (I know it doesn’t always work out, especially in a job market like we have today) or they should pick up the slack at home. No laziness allowed.
That’s just it. I mean, I’m wonky enough on the inside (halfway to being a man, anyway), that I’d have thrived in the role of sole providor the way I did at first in the role of SAHM, had he taken up the domestic duties. But I wouldn’t even have suggested it, because I knew he’d be happy to hand over the pants, but no way would he have worn a skirt. And I’d have been very unhappy wearing everything while he got to goof around all day nekkid from the waist down–which is pretty much what I was doing at the end of it.
I mean, that ain’t an equal partnership no matter how you measure it.
Do you think he might have been depressed, or something?
I don’t know. I really don’t. But I do know he’d never, ever seek treatment for it. I mean, when I had post-partum depression, the doctor was prepared to prescribe me antidepressants, but the ex wouldn’t have any of it. Didn’t trust that shit. And when we were right near the end and he started to see it coming, he brought up marriage counselling during a fight, but he backed down so quickly when I said, “I think it would be a good idea” that I knew it for the threat it was. He wasn’t going to go talk about shit to someone objective, because he knew the score. He knew what he’d been doing, no matter his protestations that he “didn’t know why” I wanted to separate.
So I don’t know. I know he projected a lot. I mean a LOT. And he had a lot of anger. He’d go on and on about how mean I was with the kids, and how I was “grinding them into the dirt”, and then a week after we split he phoned just to tell me I was too easy on them and they were going to walk all over me.
By the end, I’d call him up for dinner and he’d yell, “Up in a sec,” and 45 minutes or an hour later, he’d wander up, fill a plate, and head back down again. A week after he left, my 15 y/o said to me, “One good thing about dad not living with us, we don’t have to wait an hour to have seconds.” My jaw just dropped. I’d had no idea how much they–especially my oldest boy–were resenting him, too. I ask him to move some furniture with me, and he’s right there ready to lift his end, and I can see it in his face–”bet dad wouldn’t have done this”.
Depressed? Bipolar? I honestly don’t know. I have a hard time thinking a person could be as self-centered and unmotivated as he was without some underlying issues, but…even if it is a mental illness, if he isn’t going to do anything about it, well. Last couple of years was just us surviving in spite of him. Another couple of years and it wouldn’t have even been that.
Thank you, honey, for getting those figures to the VP of Marketing by end-of-business last week. Thank you, honey, for enduring that traffic jam for the umpteenth time. If that sounds forced, imagine what it would sound like to you if your spouse thanked you for how shiny the floors are.
Not asking for thanks for every little thing done. Just an attitude of being aware that it is work. When I spent my days changing diapers and cooking and cleaning and managing to build a goddamn TV stand with a handsaw and a biscuit joiner a month and a half after giving birth because we couldn’t afford to buy a decent one, and he said to me “SOME of us have to WORK for a living” that told me all I need to know about how much he appreciated what I did for him.
When I’m doing all the domestic stuff AND working outside the home, and he won’t even clean the carport because “Well, I can’t do it now, I have to work today” followed the next day by “I’m not wasting my day off doing this shit”, that tells me all the other shit I do is NOT appreciated, just taken for granted.
And no, I didn’t congratulate him on every task he performed at work. But when he was pulling his weight, I greeted him at the door with a smile, a hug and a kiss, grabbed him the newspaper, shooed the kids out of his chair, got him a drink. Demonstrated my appreciation. Thanked him for every damn dish he washed and every bag of trash he took out, when he’d still do it.
Not every husband is like that. I hope. But I’m only going on the one I had.
He had plenty of choice–choice to dump job after job after job because I could carry us, choice to not do squat around the house because I could do that too, and I had no choice at all but to finally ask him to go. It’s kind of sad that with no financial support from him at all for over a year, I can still say life is easier and happier with him gone. And financially, I’m better off than when he was here.
John Dias- I would absolutely agree that having the opportunity to be home with my daughter is a privilege and personally I do not see any of the work I do as drudgery or something I deserve major kudos for as it’s my job as wife, mother, homemaker, and farm-girl-in-training. And I must say, around these parts, I would take the mundane and boring over the “exciting” days. Running after my animals, firing warning shots at wildlife, injuring my knee while planting crops, and having last year’s Christmas Eve dinner part go up in flames, literally, were not the sort of excitement I can handle that often. LOL. Some of the terms in this conversation have left me cringing, hence why I added my input.
I adore my husband and daughter and love to take care of people so my place in life provides me ample opportunity to make this possible. To be at home full-time allows me the opportunity to provide them with a warm loving home environment, allows me ample opportunity to help others out (by volunteering with my husband’s unit’s FRG, providing emergency childcare, cooking meals for those in need, etc), and provides me with the opportunity to invest myself in my husband’s career success in ways I likely could not otherwise. Homeschooling my daughter has been possible as a result, along with cloth diapering, shopping at thrift stores to save money, cooking & baking, exclusive breastfeeding and so much more.
I’m there to take care of my husband and/or daughter whenever one of them in sick, hurt, or upset and do not need to worry about heading off to work when somebody needs me most. Being home has also allowed me to be there whenever my husband has needed me, day or night, when he has called from overseas and made it possible for me to help pack bags and send him off when orders have come at short notice. For all of this I am sincerely thankful to my husband, for giving me the opportunity, just as I’m thankful beyond words for all my husband does for us, not just at his job, but simply by being who he is.
In my case, I would be willing and open to go back to work full-time and give my husband the opportunity to be the primary parent to our daughter and the one in charge of homeschooling. I’d also be more than willing to do whatever it takes to give him a real choice about his military career, whether this be stepping up my efforts for his continued success or looking into more normal employment than my homesteading, baking, and crafting gig if finances were keeping him in against his real wishes. He knows all of this and considered everything when he finally decided to take the route with the Army he had always planned on.
Good to see the great John Dias here.
If, for example, a particular stay-at-home mom could have been working a job with a salary of $60,000 per year — if she gave that up to stay at home — then it stands to reason that the stay-at-home role is worth at least as much as $60,000.
Haha, can I just say I love these numbers you’re throwing around. When I married him and became a SAHM, my ex was making $28 000 a year. I was making slightly less. We survived for years on his $28 000 because of sacrifices we both made and the stuff I was willing to do to save money. Had I thought for an instant that he would choose to stay at home and do all that stuff while I worked, I’d have offered him the option. I like working. Only thing I hated about working was doing the wife/mother stuff all morning, going to work my shift, only to have to do more wife/mother stuff when I got home because he’d been sitting on his butt the whole time. That wasn’t fun. That was me with two full-time jobs and him with one.
And the thing is, how long would you hold onto a job where your boss never acknowledged your efforts? If the only feedback he gave you was telling you how you’re doing it wrong? Granted, you might stay if you felt you had no choice, but you’d still bitch that it was a shitty job, and you might even learn to hate the parts of it you once loved.
I mean, I’ve been at the same job 11 years, and my boss has never once in all that time said “Good job” or “thanks for working that extra shift” or whatever(because he’s antisocial), though he’s happy to criticize when things aren’t done to his standard. Only thing that makes up for it is that I do get appreciation from my customers–lots of it, because I’m good at what I do. If I didn’t have that I’d consider it the shittiest job ever.
“I cannot tell you how many times I have heard comments from women that they would “die of boredom if they were me” or others have asked my husband how he can stand to be married to me as I’m clearly not as high & mighty as are they.”
Wow Hestia, I’m sorry that people can be so rude and judgmental.
The fact that our population finds a “paycheck” more rewarding than the work required to raise healthy and sane children (our future) is a true testament to the selfish nature of our culture.
Those women probably said those things because they themselves are boring and super jealous ; D
Hestia makes my eyes prickle with appreciation.
Deborah: “Those women probably said those things because they themselves are boring and super jealous”.
The elder women in their lives taught them to despise that life. Many of these elders were dupes. Others will get theirs in the next world.
The elder women in their lives taught them to despise that life. Many of these elders were dupes. Others will get theirs in the next world.
I’d agree with that. It is largely feminists who’ve given us the idea that the SAHM thing is a prison, when it can be very liberating and a source of huge pride. I mean, if I hadn’t been a SAHM, I’d have never been able to say “look at that yard–I landscaped it myself with a pick and shovel” or “look at my daughter, she’s a straight A grade 9 student who didn’t even bring homework home five times last year–I gave her a love of learning and helped her understand how to get things done” or “I made all the window treatments in my house and designed and built that computer desk”, because I’d have been too busy doing the 9 to 5 thing.
I was a SAHM because, realistically, once we had kids, if I’d worked, I’d have had to juggle breastfeeding with working hours, and my potential income was simply not big enough to swallow the hidden costs of working–daycare (which we both hated the idea of), better clothes and make-up, and less time (and less energy) for me to do the things that saved us money. I made a list, and figured that working 30-40 hours a week when my kids were really little would have netted us an extra $5000 a year, if that. $5000 a year wasn’t enough to sacrifice my kids’ early childhood, or the stress it would put on all of us.
And while I was doing the SAHM thing, I really didn’t consider it “drudgery”. I got more satisfaction from jobs that stayed done, certainly, but I didn’t feel like I was a slave or anything. I enjoyed cooking. Folding laundry wasn’t my cryptonite the way it is now. I used to almost enter a state of bliss when folding diapers, actually. And there’s a certain pride to be had when your house looks nice and the kids are clean and fed and happy and know how to read before they hit kindergarten (and in my daughter’s case, before she was 4).
Those tasks didn’t start to grind me down until after I’d gone back to work and circumstances made it so I had to stay there. Until I got stuck filling two roles in my household, and not getting any help with either.
And I put up with so much carrying the weight because I felt I was expected to be the super-mom. You know, the one who’ll clean and do laundry and look after the kids all day, get dinner ready to serve, then head off to work for the evening, then come home and clean up from dinner and get the kids bathed and to bed all by myself. I felt like if I couldn’t do all that, I was a failure. And I think I sustained it fairly well for two or three years before it started to get to me.
And maybe my ex bought into that, too. That I really could do it all. But the cost of it is just so huge, to your sense of self, your family, your health, everything.
I mean, I’m still stuck doing it all–and holy hell the thought of getting my house even remotely decent all at one time is…daunting. But frankly, I’m willing to let the dishes slide now and let the dog hair build up a little along the baseboards. It’s a compromise, but still.
LOL!! I’ve long observed that men can tell some women what they want to hear and it makes them happy whether or not there is a grain of truth to it or not. It’s an unfortunate difference between men and women that my rather compulsive nature to be honest and only say what is essentially true has caused more problems in my relationships than if I had simply told the women what they wanted to hear.
I like the way you and your husband have it worked out, B&G. My view of marriage is that it is a partnership for the long haul and both parties agree going in “I will do these things”, the appreciation that the other shows is keeping up their half of the bargain.
It seems to me that what has been lost in marriage is any sense of give and take or balance. Years ago I let a woman live with me who was just getting started in her career. I was already established and had a house and a regular cleaning service. I paid all the bills and her responsibilities were limited to shopping for groceries, cooking, and taking care of her own needs. I was also used to doing my own laundry and continued to do the household laundry – sheets, towels, etc. One day I was folding some towels and she climbed on my back for folding them wrong. I had no idea that there was a “right” way and a “wrong” way to fold towels that would immediate go behind the linen closet door. But, in her control-obsessed mind there clearly was. I didn’t mind doing the laundry, it was a habit. But I sure as hell did mind bitched out for not doing something exactly her way when she hadn’t lifted a finger to do any part of it. As the stupid argument over folding towels escalated, I asked what the big deal was. Her answer was “Well, I like things neat and clean.” kind of implying that I was a slob. Now, this argument was taking place in a bedroom with THREE piles of her dirty clothes on the floor, and a big pile of her shoes. But, I, who had no clothes on the floor and no shoes, was the slob because I was folding the towels, that no one would ever see except for the couple of seconds it took to grab one out of the closet, “incorrectly.”
Needless to say, that relationship did not last long because that kind of pettiness and lack of perspective was very typical of her.
But maintaining it in that immaculate state earned no demonstrative appreciation at all.
Maybe having it maintained in an immaculate state wasn’t important to him. Perhaps it was so below his radar that he didn’t even notice.
This has been a perpetual source of friction in a lot of my past relationships. The woman would do something because she wanted to do it, and they get angry at me because I didn’t praise her for doing it.
I’ve been known to say many times – “Don’t expect effusive appreciation for favors I never asked you for.”
zed: “It’s an unfortunate difference between men and women that my rather compulsive nature to be honest and only say what is essentially true has caused more problems in my relationships than if I had simply told the women what they wanted to hear.”
Preach it, brother. Silence is better than explanation.
[blockquote] One day I was folding some towels and she climbed on my back for folding them wrong. [/blockquote]
This is classic “gatekeeping” behavior and it’s quite typical of women who are threatened by a man doing tasks that a woman feels should be done by her, even thought she complains bitterly that the man isn’t doing enough to help.
Maternal gatekeeping is particularly insidious because it not only keeps a father away from his infant children, it also serves to put the mother in the position of maternal martyr who sacrifices all in order to ensure that the kids are raised to her exacting standards. Naturally, she complains bitterly about the extra burden but she would not have it any other way lest she lose her martyrdom status.
Deborah wrote:
Throughout history there have always been more “trial by fire”, character developing tests for males than females, but there were still more character developing expectations for women back in the day, than now.
While not expected to “vanquish evil”, women were still endowed with an important role in our heroic epic. In the first part of the cycle, they take the form of the selfless mother who raises the youth well, so that he is ready to take up his journey.
Most women today are unfit to be mothers.
In the second cycle of our epic, they are the virtuous maiden who gives the hero a REASON to save the world.
Women today are less loyal than in the past, and therefore, our potential “male heroes” lack the motivation to become something bigger than themselves.
In the third cycle of our epic is the “return.” The hero returns home from his journey, into the arms of the maiden, who has matured into the loyal and obedient wife, who will eventually take care of her husband when he gets old. Then, when she is too old to take care of him, their children will take care of the both of them.
With marriage being the ephemeral, joke of a commitment that it is today, men have better prospects of “return” at the retirement home.
Hestia wrote:
If a woman gives her all to being the best mother she can for her children, motherhood would indeed be a character building experience. Giving up the life you had before, when you could come & go as you pleased and do what you wanted and instead building your life around the needs of your child/ren. Getting up night after night with a teeny baby, a teething toddler, or a sick preschooler. Giving up a favorite food to continue breastfeeding for the proper length of time, rather than giving up out of selfish desires. Patiently sitting on the bathroom floor for hours upon hours while you potty train a small child and structuring your life around potty training for the first few years. Being sure to put in more work on your marriage than you ever did before, so you provide baby with a stable and loving family and also show them in their most impressionable years what love is supposed to look like.
The list goes on and on of course, but my point is, if somebody truly wants to become a mother, not just “have a baby”, and is ready to dedicate her life to the well-being of a helpless human being who depends on her for pretty much everything, she is embarking on a journey that requires much self-denial, cultivation of many virtues, and a point in her life that forces her to look in the mirror and be aghast at how impatient, self-centered, and lazy she was before this little person came and forced her to grow up.
Bingo – you guys sum it up nicely. Basically, our culture’s/societies expectations of women have changed quite a bit from those traditional ones you mention. Sadly, the very expectations you mention – ones that are essential to cohesive family life – have been demonized by the elites as symptoms of the ‘disease’ they seek to eradicate – patriarchy.
As you point out Deborah…
With marriage being the ephemeral, joke of a commitment that it is today, men have better prospects of “return” at the retirement home.
…the incentives for men to marry changed right along with our expectations of women. This is no surprise as the culturally enforced expectations society has of one sex provides the incentives for the other to pursue marital relationships. Expectations of men = Incentives for women and vice versa.
It’s a pity so many today (including SoCons, among whom I count myself) buy into the policy prescriptions of the femarxists without bothering to understand the underlying philosophy that provides the impetus for those policies. It’s even more troubling that such people cannot understand that different incentives – quite apart from what motivates them – will naturally and inevitably lead to different behavior; this is basic economics.
That so many expect(ed) the behavior of men to remain static while the cultural expectations of women have changed so drastically is bizarre. My best guess is that this expectation is motivated by the myth that this article speaks to: that men care only about looks (and, of course, sex). Accordingly, men are expected to pursue women – come hell or high water – because they got to get themselves some of that ‘magic’. I say this because when men are questioned as to why they are single, it usually seems to take the form of questioning his sexuality, as if that is the only relevant factor. Of course, this would mean that the very pe who decry the ‘fact’ that men are pigs must then rely on that same ‘fact’ to bolster their argument.
And their expectations and demands of men.
Outstanding analysis, Wombatty.
The fly in the ointment for both the feminists and the SoCons is that their basic presumption that “all men are shallow pigs, motivated completely and only by sex, or the promise thereof” is simply and flatly wrong. Thus we have the bizarre situation today in which men are harassed to do the very things for which they will be bashed if they do.
Men today are weighing the relative risks and realizing that now that the stigma of homosexuality has been completely destroyed at the cultural level, having one’s “sexuality” questioned has no more social power than a pop-gun.
Would I rather be called “gay”, or dragged through family court because cupcake “still loves me, but is not ‘in love’ with me”, have my income attached, my kids taken away from me, and possibly thrown in jail if I am so unfortunate as to lose my job.
Tough choice… NOT!
Excellent summation; very succinctly put. It’s a perfect catch-22 – one that ensures that no matter what the issue is, the blame will be firmly affixed to men’s shoulders.
The question for men then becomes: If it’s a no-win situation, why bother to play the game?
“That so many expect(ed) the behavior of men to remain static while the cultural expectations of women have changed so drastically is bizarre.”
Quite true. I have changed my ways about women. Namely, I’ve given up on them completely. They have nothing to offer me that equals the burden they place on me. Some men can’t live that way. I can.
I didn’t feel like I was a slave or anything. I enjoyed cooking. Folding laundry wasn’t my cryptonite the way it is now. I used to almost enter a state of bliss when folding diapers, actually. And there’s a certain pride to be had when your house looks nice and the kids are clean and fed and happy and know how to read before they hit kindergarten (and in my daughter’s case, before she was 4).
Yeah. That’s how I feel about it. I do find vacuuming and laundry a bit annoying (nobody’s perfect) but washing cloth diapers is definitely nice. I used to put vinegar in the rinse and they’d come out smelling so clean. Then I’d hang them outside to bleach and dry. There’s something just so wonderful about a wash stand full of cloth diapers. And when I mop the floor and everything’s shiny… It’s great.
And breastfeeding… I sort of miss breastfeeding. Strangely. There’s something so sweet about it. What I miss most though, is baby-wearing. We had this great Didymos wrap and I loved carrying them around in it and just listening to them breathe and smelling their heads.
Geez…. I am soooo cheesy. LOL. It’s funny to write something like that because I’d NEVER say that IRL. People would think I had a few screws loose. *sigh* Feels good to say it, though.
But because I don’t actually ENJOY a lot of the more repetitive things I stick to my lists and calendars (habit from my old job). They give me momentum and help me fight my natural procrastinating tendencies. My house isn’t spotless (2 preschoolers to blame for that) but it’s neat. My husband doesn’t notice the difference between spotless and neat, anyway. As long as nothing sticks to his socks and he’s not grossed out by the bathroom sink, he doesn’t really care. I clean each thing regularly and thoroughly (according to my weekly list) and tidy up twice a day (before my husband comes home and before I go to bed at night — he usually helps at night). That suffices.
The best parts of being a SAHM are: scheduling flexibility (VERY important because my husband is often on business trips for weeks at a time and his work schedule is a bit chaotic), having evenings to relax with my family (instead of frantically finishing the housework that languished while you’re out working), homeschooling, excellent diet (hard to maintain while working full-time), and the relaxed, natural atmosphere at home with plenty of fresh air and sunshine. Yeah, it’s a privileged and pleasant life, which is why I get so pissed off when I see women taking it for granted.
Many husbands will offer their wives the option of working a paid job vs. staying at home. But I would surmise that nine out of ten wives that work in paid jobs will NOT offer the same option to their husbands.
My husband refused to marry me unless I agreed to be a SAHM. About a month before the wedding he just flat-out refused and said he’d walk out the door and cancel the wedding unless I promised. And he seemed to really mean it. There was a HUGE fight with me screaming that “I’m a *&%#@ engineer. I make good money and I’m *&%#@ important. Do you know how *&%#@ long it took me to get where I am? I have more interesting things to do than wash the *&%#@ windows and bake *&%#@ cookies!” (I have such a nice potty-mouth.)
He talked me around to it eventually even though I was so worried about what other people would think and if my children would be unduly corrupted by my influence. LOL. I don’t know what I was thinking; brainwashed, I guess. When I told my mom what I’d agreed to do, her comment was, “I thought I raised you right.” Nice, huh? She’s come around in the meantime but it took a few years. But if I’m at her house for a party and someone asks what I do and I respond, “Oh, I’m a stay-at-home mom.” she CRINGES and rushes in with, “Actually, she’s a software engineer. She’s just taking a few years off while the kids are young.” If you count “young” as “under 18″ then she’s right.
We told her about the homeschooling recently and she just rolled her eyes, sighed, threw up her hands, and said, “It figures. I gave up on you years ago.” LOL. I’m like the ultimate 1970’s feminist nightmare, I suppose.
Wombatty: “If it’s a no-win situation, why bother to play the game?”
Yossarian jumped.
Good for you!! Alice Walker’s daughter turned out to be a similar nightmare for her. As nightmarish as they were for us to deal with, it’s nice to know that their kharma is coming home to roost.
Good post